GarnishBar
A cocktail site focused on quality, not quantity
GarnishBar is a project I work on with fellow friends. Succinctly, GarnishBar helps you find and make great cocktails.
Situation
Lots of sites have recipe databases with hundreds of recipes. But the quality can be hit-or-miss. We list fewer recipes than our peers. Our focus is on quality and “discoverability”.
The site
GarnishBar is a deceptively simple on the front-end. Behind the scenes, a highly custom CMS maintains complex taxonomies for drinks, ingredients, glassware and other recipe data. Nearly everything is deeply related, which powers a faceted navigation system. Users can discover drinks based on ingredients, keywords, certifications, and more. A mobile version allows users to search from the bar. Unbeknownst to the user, the site delivers different ad configurations dynamically, tracking the effectiveness of format, size and placement.
At the time of this writing, GarnishBar is in its first release. We’re working hard to build in user accounts, recipe submissions, recipe cloning, tasting notes, ratings and other social features. Our hope is that we give people who care about mixology the inspiration and information to make great drinks.
My involvement
Perhaps different than most of the projects I’ve worked on, this one has the blurriest lines. Officially, I’m the UX guy. However, every decision whether information architecture, technical, design or interaction-related was vetted among the team members.
