My home cocktail journey started out with the purchase of a few books. The first was Ted Haigh’s “Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails”. Then came “The Bar Book” by Jefferey Morgenthaler. The third book, “Smuggler’s Cove” by Martin Cate (read my review here) really set things off. I was going to the liquor store every day picking up new ingredients and excitedly heading home to see what I could make.
While this process was a lot of fun, it led to a number of questions:
- What ingredient(s) should I buy to get the most “bang for my buck”
- What other recipe(s) can I make with the ingredients that I already have
- If I’m going to host a home cocktail party, what things should I buy to make these 10 recipes
I came up with all sorts of weird ways to answer these questions. Note cards and spreadsheets were my best friends. These workarounds worked, to an extent, but I realized I could do better.
Enter, Spiridex:
Spiridex is an app that treats the content of cocktail books, bar menus or any other recipe source you can think of as a collection. Users gain access to these collections by visiting a bar or restaurant, by buying a book, or via links from publishers blogs.
The goal of Spiridex is to augment the home/enthusiast bartender’s enjoyment of existing cocktail publications. Spiridex accomplishes this goal in a few ways:
- Spiridex unifies ingredients across all publications, so that there is a single place to control inventory
- Spiridex allows for the creation of custom shopping lists based on a menu or set of favorite recipes
- Spiridex shows, at a glance, what ingredients will be the most impactful, both in terms of the number of recipes that use that ingredient, but also in terms of the number of new recipes that would be completed by an ingredient
- Spiridex allows readers to search for recipes by ingredients, allowing them to find recipes that fit a flavor profile or desired new ingredient they want to play with.
Spiridex is organized around collections, and each collection is designed to maintain the aesthetic of the publisher. When a reader is in a collection, they should feel like they are in the publisher/authors curated space. This provides the publishers with a branded technology platform on which to deliver their content.
Spiridex is currently in a closed beta testing mode. We’re looking to add content publishers who want to deliver value-added content to their existing customers. We want to augment and not replace other sources of this content, and always with the permission of the content creator. Some publishers who may want to use Spiridex include:
- Spirits brands who currently publish lists of cocktails on their websites or blogs
- Bartenders and enthusiasts who post recipes to their blogs or other social media
- Cocktail book publishers
- Liquor stores who post recipes around their stores
- Bars who want to make some of their own recipe content available to their customers, even without publishing a full book.
The team behind Spiridex is available to help digitize your content and will work closely with you to ensure that the content remains true to your brand.
Spiridex is also inviting beta customers to act as readers for this content and provide feedback on the app functionality.
If you’re interested in learning more about Spiridex, visit the product website by clicking here.