A Coffee-Gulping Parrot, Artisanal Toothpicks and a Beer Cooler You'll Really Dig

Toothpicks

Fowl Brew: Polly can keep her cracker. Kyara, a parrot owned by Portland, Ore., resident Charlene Fugel, wants a grande two-pump mocha, diluted and poured from a venti cup. The caffeine-craving bird has been drinking coffee — about a tablespoonful about twice a month — for the past seven years. (Her vet apparently said it was OK.) "She's crazy about coffee, and she'll drink it any way you give it to her," Charlene told KATU News. "Cold, hot — she doesn't care. Sugar, none …" Watch a video of Kyara downing her unusual beverage of choice here. [ KATU.com]

Cold Brewskies: Wondering how to keep your beer cold during all those backyard barbecues? Forget the schlep to the kitchen fridge. Never mind the ice-filled cooler. Four thirsty Danish inventors have come up with a convenient, environmentally friendly, electricity-free way to cool your beer year-round — underground. The eCool earth cooler is a patented contraption you embed in the earth below your yard or terrace that uses the naturally lower temperatures below ground to chill your beer (or, one imagines, sodas and juices). Stock it with up to 24 cans and retrieve them, one by one, using a simple hand crank, as your thirst dictates. Ingenious! [eCool via Gizmodo]

Something to Chew On: How much would you pay for a pack of "artisanal" toothpicks? How about $35.99 — for a "minimum" of 48 sticks? Look, I hear you. But these toothpicks — which come in flavors ranging from "Mint No. 9" and "CinnaMint No. 7" to "Salted Birch No. 8," "Single Malt No. 16" and "Bourbon No. 22" — are made in small batches using only "premium natural ingredients like essential oils and single malt scotch," Daneson, which makes them, boasts. The oils give the sticks, made of "veneer quality A-Grade wood milled from northern white birch in America," a "subtle aroma and an experience that is unique from batch to batch and that changes over time much like a fine wine." Sure makes you appreciate that free floss from your dentist, eh? [ Daneson via First We Feast]

In Other Food News: A new beverage-industry-funded study suggesting that drinking diet sodas and other sugar-free beverages may do more to help dieters lose more weight than drinking water alone is being met with skepticism from researchers not involved with the study. [ NPR] The New York State Liquor Authority has launched an investigation into the sale via social media of an "unregulated" alcoholic frozen beverage called Phrosties. "The SLA is looking into the illegal sale of this unregistered and potentially dangerous alcoholic drink by an unlicensed business,” a spokesman told the New York Post. [ NY Post] Tabasco is apparently looking to give Sriracha maker Huy Fong Foods a run for its money by introducing a rival Sriracha sauce. Clearly, the Sriracha market is hot right now. [ Time] A man named Andrew has set a free-drink record at Starbucks with a 128-ounce Sexagintuple Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino, which would have cost him $54.75 if he were paying. Andrew was able to drink only about a third of the giant gratis caffeinated beverage, but declared it to be "delicious." Consumerist cautions that drinking the whole thing at one sitting would have been dangerous, if not quite deadly. [Consumerist]

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