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We prepared a list with 8 of the best apps about drinks that you can always carry with you. Here, you’ll find apps that will make you an expert when buying and tasting wines, a wizard of beer and a master of cocktails. This theme is also an interesting way to realize how technology is helping to increase our food culture and demands.
Like the idea? Then keep reading.
1. Tipple - Wine Tasting for Everyone
Tipple – Wine Tasting for Everyone is an app designed to do exactly what it says: to help you taste a wine. Are you unsure about describing the color of the wine you’re tasting? Is red just ‘red’? No problem, you can compare it with the samples Tipple gives you. Tipple also teaches the best way to manipulate the wine in the glass and in the mouth in order to maximize your senses. The app has a wide array of easy to use functions where you can learn to assess criteria such as aroma, acidity, tannins, body, and alcohol. In the end, you can save tasting notes, photos and other details of a particular and compare it with the rest of your cellar.
2. Ginventory
Gin is quite fashionable right now, and has been filling shelves at supermarkets and specialty shops. If you feel bemused when it’s time to buy up some gin, Ginventory will come to the rescue. You only need to type in the name of the brand you’re looking for (or at) to find the history of the product, its alcoholic content and the perfect tonic water to complement it with. Ginventory goes a step further and also recommends specific herbs and spices to garnish your drink.
3. Untappd
Beer lovers have their own hoppy social network, Untappd. With the app, you can evaluate and save your impressions as you drink the vastest array of beers. And let’s face it, the world is full of different beers to taste. You can even take a picture of and record the moment where you tried your favorite beer for the first time. Tear shedding? Maybe. Besides, the app gives you similar beers and also tells you the whereabouts of the closest drinking-hole. Oh, and as you gain experience, you’ll be awarded honor badges, like an intrepid malt scout.
4. Vivino
The main objective of Vivino is to shed some light on the endless wine aisle. Photographing the wine’s label suffices and soon you may access information such as the general classification of this wine according to the evaluation of other users, average price, similar wines and a short summary of the corresponding wine region. Oh, if you could only do this with a restaurant’s wine list … well, Vivino does that, too. Of course, you can have fun photographing detergent labels and the like, but it won’t work. However, you can find ratings for other alcoholic beverages such as beer, cider, gin, and vodka. Vivino is probably one of the most popular and used apps in the alcoholic beverage segment and the numbers speak for themselves. Since its launch in 2010, the app has already surpassed 69 million ratings in more than 10 million wines. Although this app does not require any prerequisites for its users, Vivino CEO Heini Zachariassen claimed that the app user’s ratings on wines tend to converge with expert’s ratings.
5. Liquor Cabinet
Liquor Cabinet is the brainchild of a group of brothers that realized there is a story behind each cocktail. Here you’ll find a compilation of a massive selection of cocktails with very clear recipe instructions, as well as a list of predominant flavours, best brands, essential utensils and degree of difficulty. And of course, the cocktail’s story. Have you imagined being that person that can not only prepare the perfect cocktail and also tell a couple of stories about it? It’s more than James Bond ever could. In the end, if your drink looks as lovely as the one in the app, it won’t have been in vain.
6. BJCP Styles
This app is for serious beer/cider/mead geeks. That’s why it’s great. Following an ebook-like structure (but more interactive) BCJP Styles teaches everything there is to know about the different styles of these drinks. And when we say the app has them all, it really does: from Piwo Grodziskie to Roggenbier, from Lambic to IPA, from Wee Heavy to Tropical Stout. Every category counts with a detailed explanation regarding appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and ingredients, amongst other.
7. Flaviar
Although the Prohibition ended in 1933, nowadays 99% of spirits are just as inacessible as at the time – or so Flaviar claims. This app has a library of 15,000 spirits, ranging from large brands to small producers of whiskey, bourbon, cognac, gin and rum. Oh, and they’ll also send them to you. For each drink there is a curious explanation about the place of production, the type of distillation, and, above all, its most distinctive functionality: a spiral of flavors. This spiral is probably one of the most brilliant ways to present the flavors present in a drink, and is well worth experimenting with. The authors claim they spent 3 years gathering the necessary information – as well as some black magic – to develop this spiral of flavors. Like alcohol, this app is truly addictive. The interactivity and the theme of the occult lead you to lose several minutes or even hours feeding your curiosity about dozens of drinks. We managed to find some Port wines, and we learned that Quinta do Noval created the LBV style.
8. Estimating blood alcohol levels
We couldn’t just dish out beverage apps to help you out with the already easy job of drinking without some friendly advice. There are those who have a hard time admitting that they are in no state to drive, but if you need an app to state the obvious for you, then we’re here to make it happen. Please remember this Portuguese expression: Mr. Safe died of old age – perfect translation – so if you drink, don’t drive. In general, these apps have similar functions and require that you introduce the type and amount of beverages you consumed and also your weight and sex, thus estimating the blood alcohol level, as well as how many hours it’ll take to sober up. For iOS, you have IntelliDrink Lite, and for Android systems, AlcoDroid Alcohol Tracker.
