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 · 16 dishes here use it

Out of tonic

Bitter and sweet at once, so it is a mixer with an opinion. It is also the fastest thing on this list to go flat — small bottles rather than a large one is the whole trick.

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

soda water plus a bar spoon of simple syrup

one for one on the soda, a quarter ounce of syrup per drink

What it gets you
Bubbles, dilution and sweetness in the right proportions.
What it costs you
The quinine, which is the bitterness the drink is built around. This tastes clean and a bit empty.

Instead · 2

bitter lemon or a bitter soda

one for one

What it gets you
Sweet, bitter and carbonated at once, which is the shape of tonic.
What it costs you
The specific quinine dryness, replaced by citrus pith or gentian.

Instead · 3

ginger ale with a dash of bitters

one for one, two dashes

What it gets you
A sweet, spiced, bittered mixer that carries gin surprisingly well.
What it costs you
It is a different drink. A gin and ginger is not a gin and tonic and nobody will be fooled.

Where the swap will be tasted · 16

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