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 · 32 dishes here use it

Out of rum

The widest spirit on the shelf. White rum is clean and lets lime lead; aged rum brings oak and dried fruit; funky pot-still rum is a flavor in its own right and will take over a drink built for the others.

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

What to reach for

Instead · 1

cachaca, for white rum

one for one

What it gets you
A cane spirit in the same drinks, and a daiquiri made with it is a very good drink.
What it costs you
Roundness. Cachaca is grassier and more raw because it is pressed from juice rather than molasses.

Instead · 2

bourbon or aged tequila, for dark rum

one for one

What it gets you
Barrel age and sweetness in a stirred or a shaken drink.
What it costs you
The molasses. Nothing else tastes like that, so tiki drinks in particular fall apart.

Instead · 3

vodka plus a bar spoon of demerara syrup

one for one, with a quarter ounce of syrup

What it gets you
The alcohol and a hint of the sugarcane sweetness, which carries a simple highball.
What it costs you
Everything with a name. This is a stopgap and it should be treated as one.

Where the swap will be tasted · 25

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes rum 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 rum 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 rumRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions