A better title for post would probably be “What kinds booze to drink together to get drunk in style, according to those who write, compile, publish, test and enjoy cocktail recipes”. Continuing from previous posts, I wanted to see how does it look a network of ingredients of all possible cocktail recipes, and if it’s possible to divide them into sensible groups, so that they would be instantly recognizable and even helpful to experienced and casual drinkers alike.

To do this, more than 25,000 recipes from Drinksmixer.com and Drinksnation.com were scraped, a network was constructed with Gephi, and visualized here below. Dot size reflects the count of that particular ingredient in all analyzed recipes. Dots of same color frequently appear together in recipes. One could say that one can hardly make a mistake if one combines three ingredients of the same color and drinks the concoction.

The map below is interactive, try panning and zooming with mouse or use the control in the upper left-hand corner.

I see five major groups of ingredients, but your alcohol proof may vary. Actually I suspected something like that:

ice is in its own group. For some reason it also contains tequila,

milky drinks are in their own group (gray-blue),

salty and spicy drinks are also in an easily recognizable group (pink),

blue group is dominated by vodka and rum,

green group mostly has gin and tangy juices, and

red group mostly contains fruit schnappses and liqueurs.

You can download hi-res static images here: black background | white background.

For a more mobile-friendly, searchable map with advanced interactivity, click here (Sigma.js). Clicking on an ingredient on this map will show a list of all connected ingredients. Clicking on an element in the list will show a subgraph.

Most recipes contained preferred brands for spirits and fruit juices, so I constructed another diagram. It shows which brands are usually grouped together in drinks.

Here is the interactive map:

Download hi-res static images here: black background | white background.

For a searchable map with advanced interactivity, click here. Clicking on a brand on this map will show a list of all connected brands.

I find it funny that Everclear, Kool-Aid and Mountain Dew are so close. Does that mean that people just pour 100% ethanol and caffeinated water in a jug and drink that? Possibly.

Coming up next: data-driven cooking.