Cocktail Flow - Drink Recipes Reviews

I’ve liked Cocktail Flow for a while: it’s got a good interface, has handy features (like keeping a “pantry” to help determine what drinks you can make), and has a decently large if relatively standard selection of cocktails. There are a few things that are off, like some of the recipes being copied to CocktailFlow wrong, or the pantry feature having a relatively small selection of less basic liquors and mixers, or some cocktails being made oddly simple to fit in better with their sorting and ingredient database. Nevertheless, I thought it was the best iOS app for most purposes.

But... the pricing. I didn’t mind it too much when I first started using it, and it had a few $.99 -$2 cocktail packs that were mostly seasonal or other special occasion related. However, ever since the big revamp I think the pricing is kind of ridiculous: $20 a year or $4 dollars a month just to use CocktailFlow that’s just doing what dozens of other apps and websites do, for free or just a single payment?
When you look at the lists, more than half of the cocktails, including some very basic ones, are premium, which is incredibly frustrating. I know app developers have to make money somehow, but I would rather have just paid $5 once and had a few small IAP for seasonal collections at the worst, or something. But just adding some improperly transcribed cocktail recipes copied from someone else’s cookbook? Not worth it

Love CocktailFlow so much. It’s the only app I’ll ever be using when working with cocktails from now on. My only gripe is that while the strength levels are very nice to know, it would also be nice to be able to have a sorting feature. Mainly, by strength levels, but alphabetical and other orders would be a feature I doubt anyone could possibly complain about if added. Other than that, this is my go-to and probably will always be in the future.

Edit: I mean adding the same sort function that’s in the cocktail section into the “my bar” section where you can sort through the possible cocktails for your bar by strength, or ingredient or whatever.

Overall I was happy to find CocktailFlow. From the description it sounded like what I needed and it has a lot. I will be using it, but it has a feel that CocktailFlow is geared for the beginners.
Here are few options that it was missing for me:
When a user fills out “My Bar”, CocktailFlow gives the option to select the ingredients ( that is an excellent feature). The issue is that selection is extremely limited. There are hundreds of gins, vodkas, scotchs, etc... available and they can taste as totally different beverages. For example, In my pantry, I have 6 different gins that have very different botanicals
1. There is no place to add new pantry items
2. there is no place to add the flavor profile of the beverage
3. The cocktails do not have profile descriptions.
4. Some recipes were changed from original. This forces the user to check the recipe with other sources.
5. Since there are no unique cocktails, why would anybody pay $3.99 per month. This makes no sense.
6. It would be nice to have an option to create a shopping list where users can put items that they need to buy on the next shopping trip.
7. Since some of the items are hard to find, it would be nice to show local places that might carry them.
8. Ingredient substitution. For example, some gins have similar profile while others will change final taste.

Overall, this is a very solid app. I’m not sure how some people were only recommended one or two cocktails. They just need to stock their bars better. I don’t even feel like I have that much, but it still showed 60+ cocktails i could make.

Also, people are ripping on CocktailFlow for costing $4 a month. I think that’s perfectly fair for the convenience of having all the drinks in one place with a nice interface. Also, if you use CocktailFlow at least once a week, it’s less than a dollar per use, and there are a million other ways you can save $1 per week.

Dark mode would be very nice though.

The interface is very smooth for CocktailFlow. Easy to use and not overly clunky or crowded (an issue I found with a few comparable apps here).

This isn't going to give you a list of every cocktail known to mankind. But it's got a super solid list of anything you'd realistically want to make. Plus, I really like the feature in which you can select the ingredients you have on hand, and it'll tell you what you can make (there may be one or two ingredients in a suggested cocktail that you don't have, but chances are these are basic things like limes or tonic that you really ought to have anyway).

So overall, yes. I highly recommend CocktailFlow.

This is a great resource with great functionality. I highly recommend for someone like me who likes making cocktails regularly, but doesn’t have an encyclopedic memory of recipes and booze.

Some things that would put CocktailFlow over the top into amazing:
* The ability to link ingredients from a custom recipe to the pantry list (so the custom recipes might show up when looking at the recipes you can make with stuff you have)
* the ability to make custom pantry items that can be linked to existing recipes (paired with the other suggestion, of course)

I love all the features here, especially sorting by "themes" and drink type, and the personalized liquor cabinet recipes is fantastic. And it's visually lovely and easy to use!

The one thing that would really make it perfect - 6 stars - would be if we could create and/or edit existing recipes for our own favorites list (i.e. no uploading of unvetted recipes, just local copies). That would make this my true one-stop shop for all things cocktail-related, rather than needing to stash my own list of personalized recipes elsewhere.

Visually, this is by far the most polished cocktail app. Previous versions had some limitations in terms of content but no app can have everything. There were some inconsistencies in the measurements that have not been addressed for years. These are irritations that can prevent an app to get a perfect score, but it was a very decent one.
The picture changed with the new release.
What the new version “adds” is a reduced list of cocktails and inability to import previously purchased content unless one kept the receipts (who and why would keep all receipts over the years?). Very curious what market research was done to justify the premium subscription prices... good luck with your plan.
Very disappointing developments.

After reading reviews, I took a chance on CocktailFlow. Good decision!
Great tool to use to discover drinks for a variety of situations, or just for fun. I get most use out of it by entering my home ingredients and seeing exactly how many different drinks I could make. And also, how adding just a single more item to my home bar can open up several more options.
Overall, an excellent resource for anyone with casual drinking interests, or even pro bartenders to increase their knowledge.

So with Cocktail Flow’s latest version the developers want you to subscribe. Nothing wrong with that, in theory. But now, unless you subscribe, you won’t have access to a number of the recipes which were previously in CocktailFlow ! My daughter’s favorite - the alcohol-free Designated Appletini - gone! French Gimlet - bye-bye! And that’s just what I noticed after 30 seconds.

CocktailFlow never had that big a selection of cocktails... and now it’s even smaller. Yeah, that’s gonna encourage me to give these guys 5 bucks a month.

You should probably look elsewhere at this point. There are much better-known cocktail apps containing significantly more recipes which only ask you to pay once - go with one of those.

A couple suggestions to the developers:

1 the ability to make multiple lists would be really helpful. I like the favorites list but I also want to be able to make a list of things that I can make right now, a cocktail menu.

2 in CocktailFlow , in My Lounge, when I look at the stack of cards it has lots of cocktails in there that I can’t make, even though I added all of my ingredients. I am guessing that it is showing things where I have all but one of the ingredients. I appreciate being able to see things that I can almost make with what I have, but would also really appreciate the ability to ONLY see things I can currently make if I know I don’t want to leave the house tonight.

With those two features CocktailFlow would be completely perfect! And I would be more ham willing to pay a few bucks for it. Keep up the good work.

All I can say is, at last! A bar app that does exactly what you expect from an app that was designed with a new iOS version in mind (As opposed to others that still look like they were designed for iOS 4).
I love the interface, the recipe selection, the images of the drinks, and the my bar feature seems to actually work well. I would easily spend money on this! Keep up the wonderful work guys!!

I used to absolutely love CocktailFlow and used it everyday. Not anymore. With the recent update a lot of the recipes that were there before are now gone. I miss the “search for anything” option. Being able to search on an ingredient was one of the options I used a lot. A lot of things it used to do and have it no longer does even with a paid subscription. Wish I had not bought it. If any of the developers are reading this, is there anyway I can get a refund? Probably not. After this review, I’m off to find another app. There has to be another one in CocktailFlow Store that is better than this.

Beautiful:
Gorgeous and informative images for each beverage, paired with ambient backgrounds that nail the drink's tone. Layout, typography, and icon design are clean and sleek; an all-around beautiful app.

Functional:
Color-coded ingredients are a simple and intuitive way to enhance readability of recipes; very clever. Recipes are cleanly laid out and easy to follow. Search function and wish-list/favorite features are powerful.

Deep:
My Bar feature is well executed and comprehensive; I can't think of any missing ingredients. Beverage categories are a great way to organize and discover new drinks. Top searches are a great way to find popular beverages.

Missing:
The Martinez, one of my favorite classic drinks.
A better way to sort and manage possible drinks in My Lounge.

Very handy app for learning about different cocktails, ingredients and substitutes. Love the feature that allow you to keep track of your bar supply and automatically tells you what cocktail you can make. Easy to use. Would deff recommend 👍🏽

Would have given it five stars except it’s missing the classic “Aviation” cocktail. That’s practically sacrilege!

I love that I can input everything I have and it tells me what drinks I can make. It’s very clean and beautiful app. It makes it fun to keep scrolling and learn new drinks. I love the themes you can search for like Halloween drinks or drinks based on activities or moods. I’m just learning about making drinks and setting up my bar and I couldn’t have found a better app. Thank you developers!

I really like CocktailFlow. Love how simple it is to use and love the design. However, the cocktail list is incomplete.. it's obviously impossible to know every cocktail in the world, but I would suggest a feature to edit the list. Maybe add cocktail recipes to one's own view, or add a way to send recipes to CocktailFlow managers so they can upload more cocktails. Also, what I think would be a BIG improvement is to let users get a small description of each ingredient, maybe with a picture too, by tapping on the ingredient.

Great search function. Have an ingredient that you want like to work into a cocktail? No problem. Want to know about liquor flavors? CocktailFlow covers it. I also like that recipes are given in proportions instead of units so you can scale based on the number of cocktails you are making or the volume of liquor still in your bottle. I wish it would allow you to import or create recipes - my only knock on CocktailFlow.

I've been using CocktailFlow for 2 days and have already tried many drinks that I would have never come up with on my own. There is a feature that allows you to put in all of the liquor, beer, wine and mixers that you have in your bar. CocktailFlow will then tell you recipes that you can make with what you have.

I can't recommend CocktailFlow enough. Give it a try!!

CocktailFlow is beautiful and fun to use. I have been looking for something like this, and it does everything I wanted. The photos are really nice and makes it fun to browse and find different drinks. The “My Bar” feature makes it easy to find drinks based on what you have. 5 stars for sure!

This new update is incredible! CocktailFlow was great before but this takes it to a whole new level. The interface is great and fits in perfectly with all your native iOS8 apps. They've even added new recipes, ingredients, and categories! Not to mention the fantastic artwork throughout. Really couldn't be happier with CocktailFlow.

I LOVE the feature that lets me tell CocktailFlow what I have on hand, then suggests recipes I can actually make with those ingredients. Unfortunately... it often suggest recipes with additional ingredients I *don’t* have. I can skip those, so it’s still usable. But it would be better if I didn’t have to tap in to some recipes, see that I can’t make them, then tap out again.

I have no idea what a"a piece of egg" might be and have yet to receive a response to my inquiry. Also, some ingredients are given in ratio (one part of this and two parts of that) but another ingredient is a specific amt like 1 tsp. Clearly the teaspoon ingredient would change depending on how much each of those "parts" were. Again, no response to inquiry as to what one should assume is a "part" in a recipe. Not working well so far.