Bart
What Cocktails Can I Make With What I Have?
A method for turning a random shelf of bottles into a list of drinks you can actually pour tonight, without buying anything.
You have five or six bottles, a bag of limes, and no idea what they add up to. Every recipe site answers the opposite question — it starts with a drink and tells you what to buy. This guide starts with the shelf.
The short answer
Almost every classic cocktail is one of five shapes. Work out which shapes your bottles can fill, and the list writes itself.
| Shape | Formula | You need | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sour | 2 : 1 : 0.75 | Spirit, citrus, sweetener | Daiquiri, Margarita, Whiskey Sour |
| Old Fashioned | 2 : 0.25 : dash | Spirit, sugar, bitters | Old Fashioned, Sazerac |
| Martini / stirred | 2 : 1 | Spirit, fortified wine | Martini, Manhattan, Rob Roy |
| Equal parts | 1 : 1 : 1 | Spirit, bitter, sweet vermouth | Negroni, Boulevardier, Last Word |
| Highball | 2 : 4 | Spirit, something fizzy | Gin & Tonic, Cuba Libre, Paloma |
One spirit plus a lemon plus sugar is already three drinks. One spirit plus sweet vermouth plus bitters is three more.
Work it out in four steps
- List your base spirits. Gin, vodka, rum, tequila, whiskey. Each one is the front of a different set of drinks.
- Check your citrus and sugar. A lemon, a lime and simple syrup unlock the entire sour family. Simple syrup is equal parts sugar and hot water — you do not need to buy it.
- Check your modifiers. Sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, Campari, triple sec. These are what turn one spirit into ten drinks.
- Look for the one-away drinks. This is the useful part. Find the recipes you are missing exactly one ingredient for. That list is your shopping list, ordered by value.
Where it gets hard by hand
Steps one to three are quick. Step four is not. Checking 210 recipes against eight bottles is 210 comparisons, and the answer changes every time you buy or finish a bottle. Nobody does this on paper twice.
That is the entire reason Bart exists. You add your bottles once. It runs the comparison every time you open the app, and keeps a separate list of the drinks you are one ingredient away from.
Start from a bottle you own
If you would rather browse than calculate, start with the spirit you have most of and work down: gin, vodka, rum, tequila, whiskey.
Or pick a pair you already have and see what it makes: every ingredient combination.
Stop doing this by hand
Bart holds your whole bar and answers this question in one tap, every time you open it.