Simple Cocktails

Overview

I felt that there was room for improvement in the cocktail app space. Nothing on the market felt aligned with how I wanted an app to work, so I decide to build my own.

I conceived of and executed the idea myself. I did competitive research to see how other apps solved the existing user problems. And determined what tech stack I could leverage so that I could run the app at no cost to me.

One of the core tenets of the app is that the cocktails are easy to make with off the shelf ingredients. I also simplied the glassware options and methods of crafting drinks into their essential elements so as to reduce the friction of making cocktails for new users. It doesn't need to be that serious. Making drinks at home should be simple and fun and the app tries to make that clear.

The Problem

Most cocktail apps today effectively work like a recipe book. They have a list of cocktails that you can choose from, but they lack the personalization and features that would make them truly engaging.

I wanted an app that felt like a notebook that I had been curating. Something that was completely customizable. Something that felt more like an artifact of my journey than someone else's.

Process

I knew that I wanted it to be native to the Apple ecosystem from the start. I also knew that I wanted it to be designed with Apple's new liquid glass design language.

I build the app from the start to work on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch so that users could use whatever devices they wished.

I also leveraged CloudKit to enable seamless data synchronization across all devices.

Listening to the users

I started by building the MVP locally on my device and then started gathering feedback from friends by sharing it on TestFlight. Over time, the people using it gave me valuable insights and I was able to build up a backlog of features to impliment.

I didn't add a feature until I heard from multiple users that it was something valueable to them. And I also had to feel that it was an important thing to add to the experience as well as making sure it fit into the patterns that I'd already established.

The app is free and always will be, because I care more about providing value to users than generating revenue.

Product Features

The resulting design centers on these core experiences

Adding Cocktails — Users can manually add whatever cocktail recipe they like, but the app also comes with a curated list of nearly 1000 cocktails to get started. It also allows users to add a recipe from a url or a saved image leveraging Apple Intelligence's on-device models. Another way to allow advanced funtionality without any cost to me.

My Collection — This is where you save all of the recipes you love, have tried or want to try. Once in your collection you can completely customize ingredients, amounts, add images, videos, notes, links, highlight colors for organization and much more.

My Bar — This is where the user manages their tags, ingredients, shopping list as well as their configuration settings. Once a user's ingredients are added the cocktail library can then be filtered down to just the drinks you can current make.

My Timeline — I love life logging apps like Swarm and Letterboxd, so I wanted to add that functionality into the app so users could easily track their cocktail-making journey.

Outcome

Work on Simple cocktails started in the Summer of 2025 and went live in November 2025. As of March 2026, it has had 4 major updates released on the App Store.

The app has nearly 1000 downloads, and I am actively tracking anonymous usage data to inform future development decisions using Telemetry Deck.

Search "Simple Cocktails" in the App Store on your Apple device of choice or click below to try it for yourself!