Cocktail Flow is a well-designed app with beautiful photos of each cocktail and ingredients. It has a minimal look and feel, it is very easy to use and it has an amazing variety of cocktails to choose from. So let’s take it right from the top.

Cocktail Flow loads up in to a home screen that gives you fresh break from all that Metro design that most other apps are following. Here you have a not so flat design showing to three broad categories for choosing your cocktails from. One is ‘By drink’ — based on the main drink in the cocktail like Whiskey or Champagne. The second is ‘By color’ — based on the color of the final cocktail like Blue or Green. The third is ‘By type’ — based on whether it is a classic, exotic, alcohol free, etc. This helps you quickly narrow it down to the kind of cocktail that you want.

In the ‘By drink’ section you have six choices — Whiskey, Vodka, Brandy, Rum, Champagne and Gin. In the ‘By color’ section you have Red, Blue, Pink, Yellow and Green. In the ‘By type’ section you have Classic, Exotic, Alcohol free, Shooter, Long Drinks and Creamy.

And if you scroll more to the right, you will see sections on Barstock, Favorites and also a Guides section with Introduction, Barware and Garnishes. This is perfect for those who are just getting started or wanted learn a bit more; great to keep on your tablet for quick reference during a party. Each of these sections have a glossary type approach where they have a quick description of important items. And the Barstock area is filled with ingredients that you can tick mark so that you can be shown drinks that can be made with those ingredients under the ‘My Bar’ area in the Cabinet section — great for homes and bars alike.

Once you have chosen the color, type or the drink of your choice, you are instantly transported to a sliding row of cocktail images with their names marked clearly on top of each. If you are seasoned drinker, you might be able to recognize quite a few instantly. Even if you are not, you will spot the classics easily enough because they are all there along with some of the more adventurously named ones.

After you have clicked the cocktail of your choice, you are taken to its page where you have the ingredients on the left, followed by a nice and clear image of the cocktail to its right. Moving right you have images of the all the ingredients side by side. This is followed by the steps for preparation and then you have a section for similar cocktails.

The similar cocktails area is a great discovery tool because you can surf through a series of semantically related cocktails with relative ease. You can start from something you always have and are very familiar with and then keep on clicking cocktails that intrigue you and end up with something completely new that you feel like trying out. And the clear and beautiful images serve as additional enticement to keep on browsing recipes.

Once you like something, you can add it to your favorites and you can also pin it to your Start Screen for quick reference.

In conclusion, this is a very well made cocktail app that goes beyond just listing recipes and actually puts in effort to make it useful to all users by adding utility and reference areas.