Match your shelf to real drinks
The fastest way to find a cocktail you can actually make is to inventory in three passes: base spirits (whiskey, gin, rum, tequila, vodka), sour and sweet (citrus, sugar, syrups, liqueurs), and lengtheners (tonic, soda, ginger beer, juice). Almost every classic cocktail is one item from each column — which is why even a modest shelf usually hides five or six proper drinks.
Recipe sites make you work in the wrong direction: pick a drink, then discover you're missing half of it. An ingredient-first finder flips that, so the only recipes you see are ones your shelf already covers.
Common 2-3 ingredient cocktails
These are real, canonical recipes — if you own the ingredients in any row, you can make that drink tonight:
| Cocktail | Ingredients | The gist |
|---|---|---|
| Daiquiri | White rum, lime juice, sugar | Shake 2 oz rum, 1 oz lime, 0.75 oz simple syrup; strain into a coupe |
| Gin & Tonic | Gin, tonic water | Build over ice, roughly 1 part gin to 2-3 parts tonic; lime to garnish |
| Margarita | Tequila, lime juice, orange liqueur | Shake 2 oz tequila, 1 oz lime, 0.75 oz orange liqueur; salt rim optional |
| Whiskey Sour | Whiskey, lemon juice, sugar | Shake 2 oz whiskey, 0.75 oz lemon, 0.75 oz simple syrup over ice |
| Moscow Mule | Vodka, ginger beer, lime | Build 2 oz vodka and 0.5 oz lime over ice, top with ginger beer |
| Negroni | Gin, Campari, sweet vermouth | Stir equal parts (1 oz each) with ice; strain over a big cube, orange peel |
| Cuba Libre | Rum, cola, lime | Build 2 oz rum and a squeeze of lime over ice, top with cola |
| Old Fashioned | Whiskey, sugar, bitters | Muddle sugar with 2-3 dashes bitters, add 2 oz whiskey, stir over ice |
How MixSurprise finds your drink
MixSurprise is a cocktail discovery app that works ingredient-first. Instead of matching your shelf against a fixed index, its AI generates a recipe around exactly what you list — so "vodka, ginger beer, and half a lemon" gets you a made-to-measure drink, not a "no results" page.
- List what you own: spirits, mixers, even odds and ends like honey or a lonely cucumber
- Get a matched recipe: complete with measures, build steps, glassware, and flavor notes
- Browse the collection: explore curated cocktails by spirit, style, strength, or occasion
- Feeling lucky: spin Drink Roulette for a surprise pick when you'd rather not choose