Dream Come True
Imagine rushing to a dinner party, only to remember that you’ve forgotten your one and only task: to bring the celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne. Well, guests at Melbourne’s Vue de Monde restaurant and Lui Bar can heave a sigh of relief, because the Champagne fairies have heard their pleas, and answered it with a flick of their wands.
In the restaurant lobby sits an inconspicuous vending machine like no other. Dubbed the Dom Perignon Illuminator, it dispenses Champagne, though with considerably more theatrics than a garden variety vending machine.
Purchase a Dom Perignon brass shield token (AU$290, S$312) from either establishment and feed it to the machine. Watch the Illuminator fade to black, before lighting up once again, with a bottle of Dom Perignon 2006 vintage appearing in its pigeonhole.
Guests have Shannon Bennett, owner of Vue de Monde, to thank. The concept came to life after Bennett ran after his customers to pass them a bottle of Champagne, and jokingly told them that he was a human vending machine.
Unfortunately for us, the vending machine is one of a kind, and there are currently no plans for more Illuminators. That said, we can’t help but wish for one in our neighbourhood. After all, one can always dream, right?
