A history of the Beverage Bandit

Original Beverage Bandit concept drawing by Scott M.

The origins of the Beverage Bandit

The idea originated while watching the game on a friend’s 12’ sectional. He sips his cocktail and sets his drink down on the end table. While me, sitting somewhere in the middle of his massive couch, sips and says “Hey, where do I set my drink?” His wife proclaims, “You’re an inventor (I had invented something else prior to this), you should create something!”

I went home and scribbled up a few designs.

Original Dual Small Cup model

The first iterations were modestly successful. They lacked in certain areas. Notably, it slid around on the couch and would not stay put. The base needed to be ’grippy’.

Back to the drawing board. I drew up a drink holder that mimicked the old ‘Bean Bag Ashtray’, once popular in cars from the 1960’s that had no ashtrays.

Now, with a bottom-heavy design, all that remained was how large to make the base.

The prototype (which I still have and use), and all future ones, for the first 2 years, had the smaller cup holder.

Back to the couch for another game. And a test drive.

Not heavy enough—still too ‘tippy,’ with a tall glass/ bottle in it.

Another wider base design, back to the couch…

SUCCESS!

That wife, she’s all “You should sell these.” I’m like, “Yeah, right!”

I sewed up a dozen of them. Back in those early days, used rice for the fill. Then put them for sale on Amazon.

I sold out in 2 days.

I said to myself, “I cannot chain myself down to a sewing machine forever. Plus, my seamstress skills are hardly first rate.” 

I found someone who sewed part time as a way to make extra cash. She was wonderful and loved my idea.

Along the way, we expanded to include different colors, even a camouflage and Hawaiian pattern version, (pics attached) and then eventually, the larger cup size. 

Some colors did not sell well, but the large cups outsold the smaller versions 5 to 1, or more.

My previous inventions I dubbed the ‘Bar Bandit’ and ‘Beer Bandit’. As an inventor, I decided to stay with the ‘Bandit’ theme. Thus, the ‘Beverage Bandit’.

In retrospect, I should have given this invention a name that represented/described its use more, so it would generate more hits during native internet searches. But hey, I didn’t know it would ever be this popular. Go figure. 

—Scott M.