Recipe Compilation Software / Ideas

Hello:

I am new to Tiki Central but have enjoyed all of the amazing topics and discussions. I do have one question. How does everyone record cocktail recipes for easy future reference?

I have a couple of the Beachbum Berry books and they are a great reference to have on hand at the bar. However, there are a ton of recipes that are posted in forums (like Tiki Central), on podcasts (like 5 Minutes of Rum), Instagram, etc, etc, etc. I usually save the page but this is not a great process for finding a particular recipe in the future.

I have looked at some software that allows you to enter your own recipes into the database (like My Cocktail Bar) but it seems a bit limited. It would be nice to have a place to easily search your own saved recipes while at the bar. This could be via iOS, Android or even a DIY paper book.

Any ideas out there?

Thanks,
Rick

I have a google doc (regular word-type document, not spreadsheet) where I keep those kinds of "found" recipes. That way I can access it even if I'm at the in-laws' house and it's easily searchable when it gets huge and you're looking for a particular ingredient.

EDIT: I should note that I have a 7" tablet that's almost always with me, so the whole "looking it up in a flash" thing is very easy for me.

[ Edited by: HopeChest 2016-01-14 09:21 ]

Rick, welcome to Tiki Central!

Good question, you're not the first to have this dilemma. I use three-ring binders with Word documents (reprintable in case I splash/spill during production of drinks, and it allows me to have extra copies on hand to give away to my bar guests) but am considering buying inexpensive tablet PCs for both my drink menus and to store my recipes for easier-than-notebooks use at my bar.

There are a handful of rockin' good recipe apps for cocktails out there (Berry's, Regan's, PDT, and three or four more) but they don't let you store your own stuff inside their apps -- yet. Defnitely would make a good suggestion to email to the developer of those apps, Martin Doudoroff, to add a new app which allows you to store your own recipes. Note that the Berry, Regan, and other Doudoroff apps unify your personal inventory of ingredients across all their apps. This is an ideal feature which would work great with a "your own bar recipes" app.

Make sure you go to http://mixologytech.com and write email to Martin Doudoroff to make the suggestion. He's slammed making more apps for new customers, but I'm sure he wants to hear from you and put this on his radar.

Update - on the Doudoroff web site, they show a now-retired "My Bar" app which was discontinued:

"Following a nice 3+ year run, My Bar was discontinued on January 18, 2015 due to growing incompatibilities with iOS 8. The future of the app is currently TBD. Existing customers will continue to be supported as best possible."

While iOS 8 caused problems, and the eventual demise of this product, Martin does show it's future as "TBD." So that leaves the door open for some future development/resurrection of the product. It could potentially be re-written with some new functionality to enter and store your own recipes, with access to your personal bar inventory. I'm sure he'd appreciate hearing from us.

I log most every drink I make in an enormous "Notes" document on my iPhone. They are alphabetized by drink name, then I list the recipe with instructions on how it's made, garnish, etc and give ratings (1-10) for each variation I make including the list of ingredients I used. Anything rated 6 or below is banished. Drinks rated 7 I try to tinker with to escalate them to an 8 or better (through changing rums, syrups, proportions, etc). Anything rated 8 or 9 is typically put into regularly rotation. I've yet to give anything a 10 rating because that's the "unobtainable" perfect drink which motivates me to continually play around with every recipe regardless of how much I love it (I have over 20 Mai Tai variations logged with several rated 9, but still no 10. Maybe one day).

I have a separate document on my phone for "Recipes to try" which is where I list things I've found on websites, podcasts, instagram, etc. So whenever I'm feeling ambitious I check there and pick something based on ingredients I'm in the mood for. Then I rate it and move it into the other document.

The system works for me but the documents are getting so ridiculously long I'd probably like to get it into a searchable database on a permanent website or something that can't be accidentally deleted by slipping my finger on the trash can icon. Reminds me, I should email these lists to myself on occasion as back up.

I either take a picture or a screen grab with my phone and store the recipes in a recipe photo folder. No apps to buy. But then, I only use about 20 recipes total and probably only a dozen regularly. That and the Bum's Tiki+ app have it covered.

I keep all mine in a folder in Evernote. When I'm connected to WiFi, everything syncs up so I can access it all from my laptop, iPad, or Samsung phone. The easy part about Evernote is that you can store text files, pictures, weblinks, whatever, so it doesn't matter what format the recipe is in. Once I've made a recipe, I make sure to take a picture of the finished drink, then I add that to the doc for that recipe. I've often just pulled up the recipe I want then handed my phone over to the bartender when they want to try something we've been talking about.

Being a software engineer and a member of a craft cocktail company, I ended up writing a program myself that allows you to enter drinks and ingredients using whatever sorting methods you prefer. There are all kinds of sorting options for drinks as well as other neat features that I add when I feel like a need for them. One of the most helpful for my business is the ability to batch drinks using a couple of different criteria, including an allowance for ice! You can then send the ingredients from your batched recipe to a shopping list that compiles like ingredients together and even converts the amounts into whatever the usual purchase size is. You can also print out very rough menus, usually helpful for us bartenders with the user selecting how the drinks will be displayed on the page and which fields they want to see and how big you want to see them.

There is a bunch of other cool stuff as well. I'm always looking for beta testers to try it out and let me know what they think as well as any developers that may want to contribute to the development effort. It's still not very pretty, but I find it's really useful for my cocktail business. I have grand plans to port it to the phone and tablet market, but between the cocktail gigs and my regular job, it's hard to find the time.

It's written in Java, so it should run on any desktop that has Java. If you are interested, either PM me here or contact me through The Straw Hat Barmen page at
strawhatbarmen.com.

Thank you for all of the responses.

@HopeChest - I had not thought of using Google docs. Good info.

@AceExplorer - I have tried the My Bar app for Android. It does a lot of what I want to do in that you can add recipes as well as add ingredients (syrup or specific brand for example). I will shoot an email to Martin and see what the future may hold.

@MikeHooker - I am doing a similar process and it is out of control for the recipes I have and I am sure it is no where near as long as your list.

@Swanky - This process is much easier with Smartphones now that we can take pictures.

@JenTiki - Evernote is great in principle as I can enter items on my laptop and then view on my phone or tablet. I use that for storing liquor brands that I am looking for so I can reference it quickly when at a liquor store. The problem I have is either too many notes or very long notes so it is time consuming to find a recipe.

@TikiHardBop - That sounds very interesting. I would love to try it out. I will shoot you a PM.

Thanks,

Rick

OK guys, I have a cocktail competition all day tomorrow, so it might be a week or two before I can get the program to you all. Thanks for your interest!