Cocktail Lab vs Specsmith
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cocktail Lab
Discover cocktails you can make with ingredients you already own. Get suggestions for drinks that are just a few items away and create shopping lists for missing components. Save favorites and track your creations.
- 440+ cocktail recipes
- Ingredient-based discovery
- "Almost There" suggestions
- Shopping list creation
- Favorite cocktail saving
- Cocktail tracking
- Surprise Me feature
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Your personal cocktail assistant. Add the ingredients you already have and instantly see which cocktails you can make, plus smart suggestions for drinks that are only 1 to 3 ingredients away. FEATURES - Explore 440+ cocktail recipes with clear, step-by-step instructions - Build your bar by selecting the ingredients you have at home - Discover cocktails you can make right now based on your ingredients - Get “Almost There” suggestions for drinks missing just 1 to 3 ingredients - Create a shopping list for anything you’re missing - Save your favorite cocktails for quick access - Keep track of the cocktails you’ve made - Use Surprise Me to pick a random cocktail from your available recipes - Choose between light mode and dark mode - Available in 8 languages: English, Türkçe, Deutsch, Español, Français, Português, Italiano, Русский Whether you’re an experienced home bartender or just getting started, Cocktail Lab helps you make more with what’s already in your bar.
Specsmith
This app provides bartenders with instant access to cocktail recipes, prep instructions, and batching calculations. It's designed for busy bar environments, offering clear, readable specs and seamless navigation between recipes and ingredients.
- Instant cocktail specs
- Linked prep recipes
- Batching calculations
- Clear, readable measures
- Multi-workspace support
- In-app spec editing
- Ad-free experience
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Specsmith at 5.0 against Cocktail Lab's 1.0. Cocktail Lab's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 6 days) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ratings volume, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Specsmith holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 1.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.
Cocktail Lab ships an update daily, Specsmith every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cocktail Lab | Specsmith |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 1.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Every 6 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Sertac Guralp | Jeremy Oertel |
In-app purchases
Cocktail Lab
No in-app purchases
Specsmith
No in-app purchases








