I’ve tried at least a dozen cocktail apps, trying to find one that would allow me to easily keep track of my ingredients, suggest recipes based on what I have and also let me keep track of my favorites. The vast majority go for quantity of quality, containing hundreds of poor recipes. Many also have very limited sets of ingredients, either forcing you to choose a specific type and/or not even having a category or type that fits. This app works in conjunction with two other apps from this developer, sharing my ingredient list, to provide a carefully curated list of genuine recipes that I can make, as well as showing my other recipes that I only need one or two additional ingredients for. I love how a given cocktail might have two or three variants, showing how the drink has evolved over time. The many subsets of alcohol types (such as “light rum”, “Jamaican rum”, “dark rum”, “Barbados rum”, etc.) allows me to be more specific about liquors that I like, while using more generic categories for those that I don’t. The apps automatically finds substitutions and doesn’t rule out recipes that aren’t an exact fit to what I have on hand. The *only* feature I would like to have is the ability to enter my own recipes.

For Tiki aficionados this is definitely the “go to”App for learning how to make all those mysterious Tiki cocktails that look and taste so amazing. There are so many features in this app that make it very easy to see what you can make with the ingredients on hand, as well as see what you need to get to improve your options and expand your repertoire. It’s a five star rated app for me in that regard but I’m giving it 4 stars overall because it’s still lacking on a couple things: 1. More Rums need to be categorized and added to the listings. You can search by all kinds of keywords (for example: “dark, Jamaican, etc…), but often the results are minimal and lacking obvious rums that should be included. 2. A better rum database would be nice. Adding in search categories like the way it was distilled, the kind of base product used to make a rum, years aged, etc… would elevate this app to a full 5 stars for me. 3. We need to be able to add in our own recipes to truly take this app to the next level. I want my own creations as part of the database so I can use the inventory feature on all recipes. Add a filter option for “official” and “personal” recipes to segregate if needed. All in all, this app is a must have but there is definitely room for improvement!

I have learned so much from this app, both from the historical notes about the cocktails and from the amazing amount of information it offers about the various ingredients. You can create an inventory of ingredients you have on hand and then search by “drinks you can make” (or drinks where you may be missing one or two ingredients). I also love the fact that for the most iconic cocktails it has several different recipes, showing the evolution of the cocktail through the decades and as it appeared in different venues. One fix I would suggest: when you mark a cocktail as “Need to try,” it never leaves that list even after you remove the label and mark it as “Tried/Like.” That seems like an easy correction. (Not a huge thing, but when I’m looking for new drinks to try, it’s a pain to have to go through them all to see if it’s something I truly haven’t had before.)