Comparison

Bartender's Choice Vol.3 vs Specsmith

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Bartender's Choice Vol.3

Discover over a thousand classic and modern cocktail recipes. This app provides guidance on spirits, drink styles, and flavor profiles, along with essential tips on ice, garnishes, and preparation techniques. Elevate your home bartending or professional cocktail service.

Highlights
  • Over 1000 cocktail recipes
  • Search by spirit, style, or flavor
  • Tips on ice and garnish
  • Shaking and stirring techniques
  • Classic and modern cocktails
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

From the master bartenders behind NYC and Nashville's Attaboy and Milk & Honey comes Bartender's Choice Vol.3, the definitive classic and modern classic cocktail app. Search through over a thousand recipes by spirit, style of drink or flavor profile. Ideal for home use or in any establishment wanting to serve better cocktails. Includes tips on ice, garnish, syrups, shaking & stirring. Here's to drinking better!

About

Specsmith

This app provides bar teams with instant access to cocktail specifications, prep recipes, and batching calculations. It's designed for quick, at-a-glance readability in a busy service environment, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Highlights
  • Instant cocktail specs
  • Linked prep recipes
  • Batching calculations
  • Service-ready recipe display
  • Multi-workspace support
  • In-app recipe editing
  • Ad-free experience
Features
Read full description

Specsmith is the bar team's spec book, on the floor. Every cocktail program lives in a binder, a shared doc, or someone's memory — and none of those survive a Friday night. Specsmith puts the whole thing in your pocket: the spec, the prep recipe behind it, and the batch numbers, one tap from each other. BUILT FOR SERVICE Pull up a recipe mid-ticket. Measures sit in their own column so you can read a spec at arm's length across a crowded bar, not squint at a paragraph. No loading spinner between you and the drink. PREP THAT CONNECTS An ingredient that is made in house links to the prep recipe that makes it. Tap the honey ginger syrup on a Penicillin and you get the syrup, not a search box. The prep list is there on its own too, alphabetised, for the person doing Tuesday's mise. BATCHING WITHOUT ARITHMETIC Pick a menu, pick a multiplier, get the numbers. The maths happens on the server and matches what the desktop workspace shows for the same menu, so the bar and the office are never quoting different volumes at each other. THE WHOLE WORKSPACE Your menus and your recipes, including recipes that are not on a menu right now. Belong to more than one bar? Switch between workspaces from the menu list; the app remembers which one you had open. EDIT WHERE YOU STAND Fix a spec at the station where you noticed it was wrong. Change measures, methods, glassware and garnish, and photograph the drink with the camera. If a colleague edited the same recipe first, Specsmith says so instead of quietly overwriting their work. MADE FOR A BAR, NOT A PHONE DEMO Big type, one thumb, and a spec you can read without leaning in. No adverts, and no tracking across other apps. Specsmith for iOS is the companion to the Specsmith workspace on the web, where menus get built, costed and printed. Sign in with the account you already have, or create one with email and password, Apple, or Google. Most tools for building menus, managing recipes, and creating prep guides are on the web at getspecsmith.com.

Screenshots

Bartender's Choice Vol.34 screens
Specsmith4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Specsmith at Free against Bartender's Choice Vol.3's $8.99. Specsmith also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.4). Bartender's Choice Vol.3's advantage is chart position (#8 vs unranked) and ratings volume (5 vs 1). On update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Specsmith is free to download; Bartender's Choice Vol.3 costs $8.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Specsmith holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bartender's Choice Vol.3 has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bartender's Choice Vol.3 ships an update every 3 days, Specsmith every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 8, 2026.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Bartender's Choice Vol.3 versus Specsmith: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBartender's Choice Vol.3Specsmith
Price$8.99Free — better
Rating4.4 (5 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank#8 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size171 MB3 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperFancy Free LLCJeremy Oertel

Customer experience

Bartender's Choice Vol.3

All ratings5 ratings
Positive80.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral33.3%
Negative0.0%

Specsmith

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Bartender's Choice Vol.3

No in-app purchases

None

Specsmith

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bartender's Choice Vol.3 free?
Bartender's Choice Vol.3 costs $8.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Specsmith free?
Specsmith is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Bartender's Choice Vol.3 or Specsmith?
Specsmith is rated higher. Bartender's Choice Vol.3 averages 4.4 out of 5 from 5 ratings, while Specsmith averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Bartender's Choice Vol.3 or Specsmith have ads?
Neither Bartender's Choice Vol.3 nor Specsmith shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bartender's Choice Vol.3 or Specsmith?
Bartender's Choice Vol.3 ships an update every 3 days, and Specsmith every 5 days. Most recently, Bartender's Choice Vol.3 was updated on October 8, 2026 and Specsmith on October 8, 2026.

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