Best Cocktail Apps

Pour speed · Updated 17 Oct 2026

The pour test

A bartender facing an unfamiliar spec has to find it, read it and glance back at it while building. Pouring takes the same time in every app, so the test counts only the screen work for one new drink, modeled from published typing, reading and decision times.

Reference spec · Mojito, as published by Cocktails Guru40 ml white rum30 ml lime juice2 barspoons sugar6 mint leavestop with soda waterCollins glass, mint sprig

A new Mojito models at 16 seconds of screen work in Imbiblia and 29 to 35 seconds in the others

Modeled seconds from the phone's home screen to the garnish, pouring excluded

  • Find the recipe
  • Bring it all on screen
  • First read
  • Look-backs while building
Imbiblia15.9 s
BarGenius28.6 s
Cocktails Guru28.6 s
Professional Bartender's Suite28.6 s
8,500+ Drink Recipes35.0 s
Show the numbers
AppFind the recipeBring it all on screenFirst readLook-backs while buildingTotalTouches
Imbiblia4.4 s0.0 s5.5 s6.0 s15.9 s5
BarGenius4.4 s1.7 s14.9 s7.7 s28.6 s6
Cocktails Guru4.4 s1.7 s14.9 s7.7 s28.6 s6
Bartender's Suite4.4 s1.7 s14.9 s7.7 s28.6 s6
8,500+ Drinks6.0 s3.4 s16.2 s9.4 s35.0 s8

Imbiblia keeps its lead unless each of its icons takes longer than 2.4 seconds to recognize. At a full second per icon it models at 20.4 seconds.

In our model, every app reaches the recipe in five or six touches. Seeing all of it takes up to two more.

Touches from the phone's home screen to the whole recipe, with predictive search after two letters

Imbiblia5 touches
  1. Open
  2. Search
  3. Type
  4. Type
  5. Pick
BarGenius6 touches
  1. Open
  2. Search
  3. Type
  4. Type
  5. Pick
  6. Scroll
Cocktails Guru6 touches
  1. Open
  2. Search
  3. Type
  4. Type
  5. Pick
  6. Scroll
Professional Bartender's Suite6 touches
  1. Open
  2. Search
  3. Type
  4. Type
  5. Pick
  6. Scroll
8,500+ Drink Recipes8 touches
  1. Open
  2. Ad
  3. Search
  4. Type
  5. Type
  6. Pick
  7. Tab
  8. Tab

Filled circles are touches beyond the ones every app needs: a scroll, a tab or an ad.

Three ways to lay out a recipe

Schematics, not screenshots

One-screen cardImbiblia. Icons for the method, glass and garnish (per its release notes), amounts as text and ratios as a pie (per the developer).
Photo, then textCocktails Guru, from its recipe pages. The method sits below the fold. BarGenius and Bartender's Suite are modeled the same way, because nothing public separates them.
Tabbed text8,500+ Drink Recipes, as AppleVis described it in 2014: ingredients and instructions on separate tabs. Its current layout isn't documented.

The model

Screen time splits into four phases. Each phase is built from three measured human-performance constants and a few stated assumptions.

screen time = find + open + first read + look-backs find = touches × 0.33 s + 2 decisions × 1.35 s (+ 1.35 s to dismiss an ad) open = each scroll or tab × 1.68 s first read = words × 0.25 s (icons count as words) look-backs = 6 × 1.0 s + each off-screen look × 1.68 s Mojito text: 16 words of ingredients, 40 of method, 3 for glass and garnish

Assumptions

  • 0.33 s per touch, from 36.2 words per minute of phone typing at five characters per word (Palin et al., 2019).
  • 1.35 s per decision or new screen, the mental-preparation operator of the keystroke-level model (Card, Moran and Newell, 1980).
  • 0.25 s per word, from 238 words per minute of silent reading (Brysbaert, 2019). Recipe text is likely slower to read, which would widen the gaps.
  • 2 typed letters before predictive search offers the drink, in every app.
  • An icon reads like a word: 6 Imbiblia icons for the Mojito.
  • 6 look-backs while building (five pours and the garnish), 1 s each. A scrolled page needs one of them off-screen, a tabbed page two, each costing a scroll or tab switch (1.68 s).
  • In 8,500+ Drink Recipes, one touch and one decision to dismiss an ad at launch, and 1.35 s to reconcile units that vary from recipe to recipe (a 2017 review).
  • BarGenius and Bartender's Suite are modeled with Cocktails Guru's page layout, because nothing public separates them.
  • 8,500+ Drink Recipes is modeled with the separate tabs AppleVis described in 2014; its current layout isn't documented.
  • Cocktails Guru's full-screen launch ad runs only during sponsor campaigns, so it isn't counted. It would add a touch and a decision.

How the pour test feeds the scores