HOUSTON—In March, Axelrad, a beer garden located in Houston, orchestrated a bar fight of sorts by hosting a month-long competition between IRL bartenders and artificial intelligence (AI). It pitted human-made cocktails against those created by ChatGPT to see who (or what) would come out victorious.
Throughout the month, Axelrad patrons were able to taste test both the IRL and AI versions of four different drinks, which were offered as half pours, and vote for their favorite.
Of course, ChatGPT can concoct cocktail recipes, but should it? Axelrad entered prompts such as “make a cocktail inspired by the game The Legend of Zelda.” The result was a machine-generated recipe on how to create the cocktail. “At first, GPT kept coming up with overly sweet cocktails,” the bar’s general manager Whitney Grant explained of the tech’s limitations. “We had to keep rephrasing our questions to get something that would actually work.”
The human-created Zeldarita (left) went head-to-head with the AI-created Triforce Tonic (right).Photo: Courtesy of Axelrad
These iterations were then presented alongside the original real-life creations on the “Humans vs. Machines” menu.
Some brands have been tinkering with AI generation, but few have put it to the test like Axelrad did. For example, for National Margarita Day in February, Patrón Tequila launched an AI art generator that crafted personalized images of margaritas. Consumers could list their dream destination, favorite ingredient, and garnish of choice, resulting in a custom margarita image, which they could then share on Twitter or Instagram for a chance to win tickets to see Becky G. perform in New York City. However, the cocktail recipe wasn’t included.
My Menu, a provider of digital menu solutions for hospitality venues, recently launched its AI-powered menu description generator feature, which, as the name suggests, creates menu item descriptions using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, as well as any existing menu descriptions.
“Most standalone restaurants lack the funds to hire an advertising agency or F&B consultants to professionally write the menu descriptions,” said Abhishek Bose, CEO of My Menu. “With the advent of ChatGPT and other advancements in AI, we figured why not automate this process.”
He said he expects AI to continue to streamline services within the industry, such as a voice-generated answering service that will take your reservation and facial recognition features that deliver tailored menus and experiences at restaurants.
So who won Axelrad’s battle between bot and bartender? Grant said it was a tie, with the humans winning for their versions of the Zeldarita and the mocktail and ChatGPT winning for its takes on the frozen drink and bramble.
But don’t expect ChatGPT to be working behind the bar anytime soon. Grant said that Axelrad might enlist AI to help spark inspiration, “but not to directly come up with cocktail recipes,” adding that it “has a ways to go” before it could be used by mixologists and caterers to aid in event planning.
“One thing we really enjoyed using it for was naming cocktails,” she said. “Every month we do a different cocktail called our 'Rad drink of the month,' and it gets exhausting trying to name them all. ChatGPT is really good at naming cocktails!”
ChatGPT created new versions of the bar’s Zeldarita, MangoRada, Blackberry Bramble Jam, and the Spicy Paloma Mocktail.Photo: Courtesy of Axelrad
