The best cocktail apps, and what each one is for

Start from your shelf. The useful answer is the drinks you can make tonight with what you've got, and which one bottle would open up the most new ones.

Know that some bottles change once they're open. Vermouth is a wine, and once it's open it's on the clock: three months on a shelf and it's worth tasting before it goes into a Negroni.

Say plainly what's free. Mixel keeps its what-can-I-make matching free and charges for the full library; Make Me A Cocktail charges for what to buy next, and for photo scanning after three free scans.

Barello does all three, free, and keeps the wine on the same shelf.

Tell it what's on the shelf and it shows every cocktail you can make tonight, the ones you're a bottle away from, and which one bottle would open up the most. The wine sits in the same household inventory, so the answer can be a Negroni or a Shiraz that's ready. Why both belong in one place.

Opened vermouth, aperitifs and liqueurs carry a note when they've been open long enough to taste first, and a priced bottle shows what a nip costs. How it keeps a home bar. The whole house shares one shelf. It's free to use. Here's what joining early gets you. The cocktail finder does the matching without an account.

On the App Store since 2012. Recipes come with step-by-step guides, and its listing describes a cabinet that shows the drinks you can make from what you've got. Premium opens the full recipe library, your own recipes and notes, by its own upgrade screen. Barello and Cocktail Flow, compared.

A big cocktail website with an app attached: thousands of recipes, a voice that reads each step while you mix, and AI chat when you're out of something. Premium adds what to buy next and more than one bar and takes the adverts away, by its own upgrade screen, and photo scanning stops after three free scans. Barello and Make Me A Cocktail, compared.

Premium buys the full library of 2,600 recipes, synced notes and photos, social features, themes and Bart, an AI bartender chat, by its own upgrade screen. Matching your own bottles to recipes isn't part of that deal: it's free. Barello and Mixel, compared.

Hundreds of recipes, and a filter that takes the ingredients you have and shows what you can make without a trip to the shop, with tutorials alongside.

From Steve the Bartender, and the newest here: on the App Store since March 2026. More than 650 free recipes, each with a real photo, a bar you build as you go, and the drinks you can make from it. Extra recipe collections and your own recipes are in-app purchases.

Scan each bottle's barcode, add homemade syrups and juices, and it shows what you can make, with suggestions for using up ingredients before they turn and a community for trading recipes. Most of its ratings are in the US. Barello and noflair, compared.

Step-by-step recipes with the right glass, the garnish, a prep time and a fact about where each drink came from. Pick what's on hand from spirits, liqueurs, wines and mixers and it finds what you can make, with measurements in millilitres for anyone outside the US. Most of its ratings are in the US.

No browsable library for its own sake, no social feed and no AI chat: it matches recipes against the bottles you own. It isn't on the App Store yet: it's on Google Play for Android, and on an iPhone you open it in the browser. If a big book of cocktails is what you want, Cocktail Flow, Make Me A Cocktail or Mixel will suit you better.