- Best Recipe App
- Best Reservations App
- Best Restaurant Review App
- Best Wine and Cocktails App
Best Wine and Cocktails App
Want to make the perfect martini? How about something fancier, like a red rooster or Alabama slammer? Yeah, you know the answer—there’s an app for that.
Cocktail Flow
App: Cocktail Flow
Publisher: Distinction Ltd.
Price: Free
The very best cocktails app for Windows 8.1 is Cocktail Flow. You can browse recipes by type of alcohol (whiskey, vodka, rum, and so on), color, and type (classic, exotic, and so forth). Press Windows+Q to search for specific cocktails.
Each recipe gives you a nice picture of the finished product, a list of ingredients, and the necessary step-by-step mixing instructions. You even get a list of similar cocktails, which is nice for finding new drinks.
The Cocktail Flow app also lets you manage your bar inventory, as well as create a list of your favorite drinks. There are a few single-screen “bar guides” with very basic information, but these are better skipped if you know your stuff.
Bottom line, you use Cocktail Flow to learn how to concoct a variety of interesting and tasty alcoholic beverages. It’s good for that.
Honorable Mentions
App: Bing Food & Dining
Publisher: Microsoft
Price: Free
App: BarStack
Publisher: Kurt Tomlinson
Price: $1.49
The Bing Food & Dining app included with Windows 8.1 is also pretty useful for home mixologists. With the Cocktails section you can browse recipes by difficulty, flavor profile, glass, and ingredients, and the Wine section displays wines by category, region, type, and varietal. There’s a lot of good information here, and it’s already installed on your PC.
Then there’s the BarStack app, which lets you manage all aspects of your home bar. When you go shopping, add your recently purchased ingredients to your inventory. You can then let BarStack analyze what you have on hand to determine what drinks you can make. Kind of neat.