I like going out to eat, but I’m surprisingly bad at knowing what I’ll actually like just from cocktail menu descriptions. I kept asking bartenders things like “is this sweet?” or “what’s this similar to?” and eventually decided to see if I could build something to help myself.
I put together a browser-based tool where you take a photo of a cocktail menu and get simple, plain-language flavor descriptions for each drink, along with a few similar cocktail suggestions.
I built this after dinner last week so no signup, no accounts needed. Mostly curious whether this approach makes sense or if there are obvious flaws I’m missing.
D-Machine•1mo ago
I like the idea and site design, but don't have a menu on hand to test it out.
Having gotten into cocktails recently, it really only takes buying a few bottles and trying e.g. the top 50 or so most popular cocktails from a proper site like Difford's Guide to see that basically everything is a minor variation on the same base 5-12 or so cocktails. Which in practice means if you learn to make the 20 most historically-popular cocktails, you basically know enough to predict fairly accurately what an arbitrary cocktail is going to taste like.
There really aren't that many base spirits and/or liqueurs, and the financial (and time) cost of learning these things yourself is a mere fraction of what it takes to learn from going to bars or restaurants, and can be done in about 1-2 months max (assuming you make 1-2 cocktails a night, anyway). I also kind of feel like normies and/or regular cocktail samplers quickly figure out this stuff too, even just ordering at bars and etc., so I dunno that an app adds much here or who the audience would be.
Still, enjoyed the post.
EDIT: What I suppose is maybe unclear: If you are using the app regularly, you are sampling cocktails regularly, and, very quickly, in my experience, you will learn to predict cocktail profiles in this case, rendering the app irrelevant, as predicting the profile is very easy. There might be a use case for the app if you have never tried more than e.g. 5 cocktails, but, in that case, you probably also don't know your profile preferences either, so, I dunno, it just doesn't have a clear use case for me.
buildandbrew•1mo ago
Thanks for this. totally agree that for anyone who’s actively getting into cocktails or making them at home, you’ll quickly learn your preferences and a tool like this probably adds very little.
I was thinking more about an in-the-moment context. I was out to dinner, staring at a menu, and realized something like this would have helped right then, even with a basic understanding of cocktails.
Appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective.
D-Machine•1mo ago
Yup for sure, and good point. If you can do the SEO and make sure your app comes up in spur-of-the-moment searches, there's your use-case.
buildandbrew•1mo ago
I put together a browser-based tool where you take a photo of a cocktail menu and get simple, plain-language flavor descriptions for each drink, along with a few similar cocktail suggestions.
I built this after dinner last week so no signup, no accounts needed. Mostly curious whether this approach makes sense or if there are obvious flaws I’m missing.
D-Machine•1mo ago
Having gotten into cocktails recently, it really only takes buying a few bottles and trying e.g. the top 50 or so most popular cocktails from a proper site like Difford's Guide to see that basically everything is a minor variation on the same base 5-12 or so cocktails. Which in practice means if you learn to make the 20 most historically-popular cocktails, you basically know enough to predict fairly accurately what an arbitrary cocktail is going to taste like.
There really aren't that many base spirits and/or liqueurs, and the financial (and time) cost of learning these things yourself is a mere fraction of what it takes to learn from going to bars or restaurants, and can be done in about 1-2 months max (assuming you make 1-2 cocktails a night, anyway). I also kind of feel like normies and/or regular cocktail samplers quickly figure out this stuff too, even just ordering at bars and etc., so I dunno that an app adds much here or who the audience would be.
Still, enjoyed the post.
EDIT: What I suppose is maybe unclear: If you are using the app regularly, you are sampling cocktails regularly, and, very quickly, in my experience, you will learn to predict cocktail profiles in this case, rendering the app irrelevant, as predicting the profile is very easy. There might be a use case for the app if you have never tried more than e.g. 5 cocktails, but, in that case, you probably also don't know your profile preferences either, so, I dunno, it just doesn't have a clear use case for me.
buildandbrew•1mo ago
I was thinking more about an in-the-moment context. I was out to dinner, staring at a menu, and realized something like this would have helped right then, even with a basic understanding of cocktails.
Appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective.
D-Machine•1mo ago