The law in Pennsylvania does not allow wine to be sold on shop or supermarket shelves – so what is the answer? Yes, a wine vending machine! Well, you have to give them points for original thinking, even though the machine itself is just a bit complicated.

When I say complicated I don’t just mean navigating your way around the selection of wine on offer, I actually mean the way in which you access a bottle. The first step is to enter your driving licence, which obviously satisfies the age requirement problem – oh, but then you have to prove that the licence is yours – so then the integrated surveillance camera kicks in and does a bit of face recognition to confirm your identity.

Finally the machine checks to see if you are already drunk by using its own breathalyzer system…… perhaps if you fail this test the machine deploys its own handcuffs!

Let’s just hope that once you have gone through all this rigmarole that you remembered to bring your wallet.