iBartender Cocktail Recipes 17+

Worth a try but didn’t meet my needs

My current favorite cocktail recipe app is abandonware so I’m looking for a new one. This one looked intriguing, with a small but enthusiastic set of reviews, and possibly robust set of recipes and custom user recipes.

Unfortunately, as another reviewer noted, the recipes weren’t what I expected. And easy example: Lemon Drop. I expect it to use Absolute Citron or other lemon-infused vodka, some lemon juice, simple syrup and maybe an orange liqueur. The recipe here was straight vodka and a lot of lemon juice. From a previous developer response, they state they’re using classic, long accepted recipes. I believe them. That’s fine. But I’m looking for recipes that are generally similar to what’s broadly used in 2018. This discrepancy between what I expect and the library was across my favorite drinks.

Additionally, the UI design is not attractive, to me. It’s not bad, but it’s not a delight. Especially compared to the old app I’m replacing, which is elegant and way to use.

I decided that for me a kinda clunky app that I’d have to write all my core recipes anew wasn’t what I wanted.

If this got tuned up, the recipes expanded to include contemporary approaches, and a UI refresh of the UI (see the sadly abandoned Old Sport for inspiration), I’d gladly pay a few bucks for it.

This app is a good option to compare to the other freemium apps, which have their own pluses and minuses.

What ever You Do PLEASE Not Drop Support

Seriously. This app is that good.

I now have most likely a little over a thousand drinks installed under Kevin’s app and would be devastated if support was dropped for it.

Being a home bartender I’ve also found useful at out local bar for introducing custom drinks. The things that really make this app shine is the ability to know which drinks you can make based on ingredients on hand and the fact you can add custom ingredients in order to add new drinks all the time. I have the app installed on both iPad and iPhone.

Of all my apps, this is the one I treasure most as I have tons of hours (and fun) pouring over drinks on the web and adding them and the ingredients to this app.

Oh, the new backup feature is a God send too!

Perhaps the only thing I can think of is a print feature. And I think the only time I could see this really coming into play is if, and only if, support was dropped at least all the work put into adding custom drinks wouldn’t be lost.

Anyways, super app and HIGHLY recommended.

No sync functionality

I had this installed on my iPhone and iPad and there is no way to sync between devices. I lost over 50 added recipes and favorites. Most other apps allow for a simple sync between devices but this app asks you to either backup or restore and both options resulted in the loss of data. Very unsatisfied customer!

I amended my review to 5 Stars as the developer responded to my review and reset my login. After reinstalling the app with new credentials I was able to successfully recover all of my favorites and added content. Many thanks for the timely response to my issue.

Developer Response ,

It is simply untrue that most apps in this genre have sync capability between devices. Due to the complexity and costs of proper implementation, it's a feature that's virtually always omitted.

In regards to iBartender's Backup and Restore feature, I have never received even a single bug report about data loss since it was introduced 3 years ago. It has been tested extensively.