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Food

This Smartphone Gadget Turns Fruit into Alcohol

The humble fruit bowl becomes a liquor store.

You probably started this year with good intentions, stocking up on fruit and veg in a bid to keep those Chocolate Orange cravings at bay. While you managed to eat a couple of clementines (they just weren't the same as Terry's, were they?), those apples are still languishing in the fruit bowl and the grapes are lost to the bottom draw of the fridge.

But worry not. A new gadget promises that when life gives you a glut of leftover grapes and apples, you can make wine and cider.

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The "home cider-making system" is a space age-looking countertop device created by Taiwan-based startup Alchema. It works by connecting with a smartphone app to create cider and wine with fruit.

The fruit (apples for cider or grapes for wine) is added to the pitcher, along with sugar, yeast, and water before being left to brew for a couple of weeks. The device connects with an app that has pre-loaded recipes, so users can control how sweet or alcoholic they want the final beverage to taste. The company claims it makes cider or wine production as "as easy as making coffee."

The device, which costs around £400, is currently only available in the US, Canada, and Taiwan but Alchema plans to expand to other countries soon. It's pretty pricey for a home brewing kit, but the startup claims that each batch yields up to 2.4 litres, which is around three bottles of wine.

READ MORE: We Spoke to the Guy Who Invented Blue Wine

"What better way to reduce food waste at home then by turning leftover fruit into delicious hard cider or wine," said CEO Oscar Chang in a statement to industry website The Drinks Business. "The Alchema home cider making system is a great alternative to throwing away unused fruit."

We'll cheers to that.