I’ve been using Elemental Cocktails for at least five years now. It remains the best app for cocktail recipes. Other apps may have alluring features, but as a cocktail enthusiast, Elemental checks all the essential boxes for me: classy and simple design, over 50 free classic cocktail recipes with well-informed histories/“stories” (with more collections available for one-time purchases), and—most importantly for me—excellent cocktail recipes. Oh, and it’s free!

I’ll always be exploring other apps/websites/YouTube channels for new and different cocktails; but when it comes to the classics, Elemental Cocktails has repeatedly delivered the best cocktails. My friends have agreed on this point every time I’ve experimented with a classic outside of Elemental’s purview.

Tuck those other cocktail apps away in a folder on some back page of your Home Screen if you can’t part with them, and keep this one front and center. You (and your friends) will be consistently satisfied.

There are plenty of apps that manage your alcohol supplies and that let you find drinks to make from them. Elemental Cocktails has chosen to avoid that clutter and to specialize in helping you enter and manage cocktail recipes. There are some famous recipes provided, but the primary purpose is to enter and manage your own. The app has a beautifully understated user interface. It’s easy to use and elegant. I love that I can enter the history of each cocktail, not just the ingredients and build process. The actual steps to enter a recipe are streamlined and extremely easy. Drinks can be categorized by ‘mood’ - boozy, citrusy, fruity, etc. or sorted into various categories such as the ones you entered, your favorites, or ones you’ve bookmarked. I’ve been very pleased with this app. The developers have been responsive and helpful when i’ve had questions. I’m a little surprised that the app is free - not that i’m complaining...

The user flow is intuitive and the layout clean and simple. Gives you exactly the info you need to pull up recipes fast without a bunch of extra blocks of text or double menus. No, it doesn't have the most recipes in its starter pack, but you can add your own recipes easily and, once you do, they are very quick to access. This app also allows you to buy “collections” from respected cocktails books, rather than being dedicated to one book, which is genius. The other apps have clunky layouts, loud ads, or branded recipes. The history here is also comprehensive and well researched.