Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 33 dishes here use it

Out of bourbon

Corn-sweet and vanilla-heavy from new oak, so it takes bitterness and citrus without being flattened. High rye in the mash means more spice; wheated bourbon goes rounder and softer.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

2 of the 33 dishes here that mention bourbon list it as optional — 6% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

rye whiskey

one for one

What it gets you
The same spirit doing the same job in the same glass, at the same proof.
What it costs you
Sweetness. Rye is drier and more peppery, so an old fashioned made with it needs a touch more sugar.

Instead · 2

aged rum

one for one

What it gets you
Barrel, sweetness and oak, which is most of what bourbon brings to a stirred drink.
What it costs you
The corn and the char. Rum is rounder and more tropical and it will show in anything with citrus.

Instead · 3

cognac

one for one

What it gets you
An aged spirit with fruit and depth, and it is the older answer in half the drinks bourbon has taken over.
What it costs you
The heat and the sweetness bourbon carries. Cognac drinks lighter and more floral.

Where you can just leave it out · 2

These dishes list bourbon as optional. They were written to work without it, so no ratio is needed and nothing has to be bought.

Where the swap will be tasted · 30

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes bourbon a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company bourbon keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with bourbonRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions