Creating cocktails is a craft. Carefully balancing select ingredients with unique flavors to yield a beverage that can only be described as an experience is something close to art (attested to by the visual beauty of many cocktails). Yet as can be seen in the works of Dave Arnold and others, science has something to contribute to the world of bartending. Until now, this was mostly restricted to the generation of new kinds of ingredients with the help of technology (think centrifuges or liquid nitrogen) or other additives (such as agar or enzymes). Despite these contributions the final task of assembling a cocktail recipe was still at the full creative disposal of the bartender. No more so. What would you think if cocktail recipes were dreamt up by an AI? And, further still, what if this AI has the style of, say, the famous bar Death & Co?

In fact, I built such an AI using a technique known as deep learning in which the AI learns how words and characters are used in a given context and tries to generate new text with the newly gained knowledge and rules. If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details you can find my (fairly technical) description of how I built this program here. In order to end up with an AI that can generate new cocktail recipes, you have to feed it cocktail recipes. So to obtain an AI which generated cocktail recipes with a style similar to Death & Co, I typed in all of the recipes in their great book ‘Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails, with More than 500 Recipes’. After some learning, I finally ended up with a program that can produce as many cocktail recipes as I like. Naturally, I tried some of the interesting recipes the AI came up with, so tag along for a virtual tasting session!

A perfect blend of fruity & herbal flavors — kudos to the AI!

1) Pon Cong

1 Strawberry

45 ml (1.5 oz) Wild Burrow Irish Gin

7.5 ml (0.25 oz) Vanilla Syrup

Garnish: 1 Strawberry

Instructions: Muddle the strawberry with the gin and the syrup. Carefully strain the mixture into a mixing tin filled with ice cubes and stir. Carefully strain the mixture into a prechilled glass and garnish with a cut strawberry.

Vanilla Syrup: Bring 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar to a boil with half a vanilla bean. Leave overnight; strain.

Admittedly, due to technical constraints, the AI isn’t very good at naming cocktails. Also, as a disclaimer, I filled in alcohol brand names and some of the instructions, as generated cocktail recipes only feature general terms (such as dry gin or sloe gin etc.). Now for the tasting: My partner and I really liked this one! It’s quite strong and low in volume but the flavors really blend well and you end up with a cocktail that has strong aroma notes influenced by the strawberry and the gin. I used a relatively juniper-forward gin here, so there are a lot of fresh/herbaceous notes at play here. The taste is mellowed by the vanilla syrup which comes out stronger the more sips you take. Overall, an excellent and surprising addition to my cocktail repertoire!

If you ever craved Coke but, you know, with alcohol

2) Park Markenin

22.5 ml (0.75 oz) Four Roses Bourbon

22.5 ml (0.75 oz) Ramazotti Amaro

15 ml (0.5 oz) Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

7.5 ml (0.25 oz) Lemon Juice

15 ml (0.5 oz) Cinnamon Syrup

Garnish: 1 Lime Wheel

Instructions: Combine everything in a cocktail shaker and shake with ice. Strain the mixture into a prechilled glass and garnish with a lime wheel.

Cinnamon Syrup: Bring 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar to a boil with half a crushed cinnamon stick. Leave overnight; strain.

This one was quite funny in that it’s quite reminiscent of Coke in color and taste! The low amount of lemon juice might seem to be not enough but together with the lime wheel the drink was perfect in terms of acidity. Also, the combination of juice & garnish of different citrus fruits seems unusual to me but I think it works quite well here! I really like combinations of amaro and red vermouth, as they frequently play well together. Together with the vanilla-notes of bourbon and the cinnamon delivered by the syrup this cocktail was really enjoyable as well!

So good we nearly didn’t get the chance to take a pic before it was finished

3) Role Farke

45 ml (1.5 oz) Bacardi Oakheart Spiced Rum

15 ml (0.5 oz) Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

15 ml (0.5 oz) Bols Coconut Liqueur

15 ml (0.5 oz) Gusana Rojo Mezcal

1.84 ml (2 dashes) Angostura Bitters

Instructions: Combine everything in a cocktail shaker and stir with ice. Strain the mixture into a prechilled glass. No garnish.

Another unusual combination (especially the coconut liqueur and the mezcal, an intriguing mixture!) which came out surprisingly well. The aroma is quite strongly influenced by spices and coconut whereas the taste is characterized by smoky notes from the mezcal. I think the Role Farke is a good example for a cocktail recipe which might not have come so easily to a human due to its unusual combination.

Of course the human element is not made superfluous by this as I still had to choose interesting cocktail recipes from the output of the AI. After browsing through the first 300 generated cocktail recipes, I selected around 10% as potentially interesting or unusual. I didn’t have the chance yet to try all of them, so I’ll just attach a few more to this post here. Feel free to try them out, choose your favorite spirit brand, optimize them and tell me all about your experiences!

4) San Cormado

4 Strawberries

60 ml (2 oz) Calvados

30 ml (1 oz) Grapefruit Juice

15 ml (0.5 oz) Lemon Juice

15 ml (0.5 z) Grenadine

7.5 ml (0.25 oz) Cinnamon Syrup

1.84 ml (2 dashes) Angostura Bitters

Garnish : Lemon Twist

Instructions: Muddle the strawberries with everything. Strain the mixture into a mixing tin and shake with ice. Strain the mixture into a prechilled glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

5) Nile Turkey

45 ml (1.5 oz) Dry Gin

22.5 ml (0.75 oz) Campari

15 ml (0.5 oz) Cynar Syrup

1.84 ml (2 dashes) Peychaud’s Bitters

Instructions: Figure out a way to do cynar syrup (mixing cynar & sugar + heating it?). Mix everything in mixing tin and stir with ice. Carefully strain into prechilled glasses. No garnish.

6) Jarda Tiine

60 ml (2 oz ) Cognac

15 ml (0.5 oz) Peach Liqueur

22.5 ml (0.75 oz) Lemon Juice

15 ml (0.5 oz) Cane Sugar Syrup

0.92 ml (1 dash) Angostura Bitters

Garnish: Pineapple Slice

Instructions: Combine everything in a mixing tin and shake with ice. Strain the mixture into a prechilled glass and garnish with a pineapple slice.

Believe me there are many more fascinating AI-generated cocktail recipes to share but this is it for today! Stay tuned for more & cheers!