BitflingerCocktailsCocktails as ratios, with stand-ins worked out from your own bar.
Most cocktails are a ratio plus a choice of bottles. A Daiquiri, a Gimlet and a Sidecar are the same sour: two parts spirit, three-quarters citrus, three-quarters sweet. Bitflinger Cocktails shows some 560 drinks that way, the classics and the crowd favorites, grouped into the ratio families they belong to.
It is the free version of Bitflinger Recipes, and it stays completely free, for iPhone, iPad and Android. There is no account, no ads and no tracking, and everything you enter stays on your device.
How it works
Tell it what is on your bar and it shows what you can make. When a drink calls for something you don't have, it builds the closest version from what you do, adjusting the amounts until the alcohol, sugar, acid and bitterness come back to the original's, and it scores how close the result is.
Tell it what's on your bar
Open My bar and tap each bottle you have. There are 185 to choose from: spirits, vermouths, amari, liqueurs, juices, syrups and mixers. The ones most bars keep come first, and Show more opens the rest a few at a time.
Can't see yours? Find a bottle searches by name, by brand (Kahlúa, Carpano Antica) and by flavour (smoke, coffee, bitter-orange). To start from the usual bottles instead, open the menu at the top right and choose Stock a starter bar.
See what you can make
Drinks lists every drink in its ratio family, with a tick on the ones your bar covers as written. Turn on Can make to see just those, or search for a drink or a bottle.
Turn on With swaps to add the drinks you can make with a stand-in or two. Their cards show how close the best version from your bar comes. The arrow on the chip sets how close is close enough: 70% by default, from 50% for a relaxed bar to 95% for a strict one.
Open a drink
The ring is the ratio, and beside it the drink is poured into its glass to scale, with the garnish on the rim. Below are the amounts, the method, the glass and the garnish.
Tap a line or a slice of the ring to pick out one ingredient. In the glass shows the finished drink's alcohol, sugar, acid, pH and bitterness once the ice has done its work.
Pour what bartenders pour
Each drink is written as it was created where that bottle is still made: the Hurricane with Fassionola, the Manhattan with rye and Angostura. Under a line are the bottles bartenders commonly pour instead and still call it the same drink, such as bourbon for rye or orange bitters for Angostura.
If you have one of those and not the written bottle, the drink counts as one you can make, and its page pours what you have.
A bar with orange bitters and no Angostura: the page pours the orange bitters and names the Angostura it stands in for.
Make it from your bar
Missing something? Choose Make it from my bar on the drink's page. The app swaps in the closest bottles you have and adjusts the amounts to bring the balance back, here Aperol for Campari with less sweet vermouth. When a stand-in is much drier than the bottle it replaces, it adds a little simple syrup; fresh lime and syrup can stand in for lime cordial.
The badge scores the result on two things: how close the numbers land, and how much of the original's character survives. Below the build, Against the Negroni shows where it lands: the tick is the drink as written, the bar is your build. When you have everything, the same button shows the riffs your bar can make.
Know when it's a different drink
Some swaps make a drink with a name of its own. Make a Manhattan from a bar with Scotch and no rye and the app calls it what it is: a Rob Roy. Well-known riffs are named the same way, like the Vodka Gimlet and the Mezcal Negroni, along with any drink in the app that is one bottle away.
Strong flavours are scored honestly. Cachaça, mezcal, Islay Scotch, absinthe and Fernet lead whatever drink they are in, so swapping one in, or swapping one out, costs more character than trading a quiet bottle for another, unless the two taste alike. The numbers can match and the drink still read differently, and the score says so: cachaça for aged rum in a Zombie balances almost perfectly but scores 77%.
Make it yours
Tap the heart on a drink, or hold its card, to add it to Favorites at the top of Drinks. Hold a favorite to reorder it by dragging, or to remove it.
The settings button at the top right of Drinks switches between ounces and millilitres, rewrites every recipe for 2:1 rich syrup if that's what you keep, sets the With swaps threshold, and changes the accent colour and dark mode.
Cocktails or Recipes
Bitflinger Cocktails is the free version of Bitflinger Recipes. Every drink is in it, and it stays completely free. If you want food recipes too, Bitflinger Recipes adds some 1,600 dishes beside the drinks for a one-off $9.99.
| Feature | Cocktails$0free, for good | Recipes$9.99once, no subscription |
|---|---|---|
| Some 560 classic cocktails as ratios | Yes | Yes |
| Make it from my bar, with a match score | Yes | Yes |
| Favorites, units and backup | Yes | Yes |
| Some 1,600 dishes, from roast chicken to pavlova | Not included | Yes |
| Make it from my pantry | Not included | Yes |
| Diets, allergens and macros per serving | Not included | Yes |
| Scale a dish to your table | Not included | Yes |
Bitflinger Recipes is its own app on the App Store and Google Play: pay once and it is yours, with no subscription and no in-app purchases. Your bar comes with you: export a backup from Bitflinger Cocktails and import it into Bitflinger Recipes. $9.99 is the US price; the store shows yours before you buy.
Support
Email help@bitflinger.net with a question, a bug or a drink you think is wrong. Saying which drink and which bottles you have on your bar helps.
Supporting the app
Bitflinger Cocktails is free, with no ads. If it has earned a spot on your bar, you can buy me a coffee.
Moving to a new phone
Your bar, favorites and settings live on the device. In the app, open Settings and choose Export backup to save them as a small file, then Import backup on the new phone.
Privacy
The app collects nothing. The details are in the Bitflinger Cocktails privacy policy.
Please drink responsibly. The app is for adults of legal drinking age.