DrinkSheet

Current Version is "Beta 1.0" (May, 2022)

DrinkSheet is a downloadable spreadsheet for Microsoft Excel that is intended to provide some useful calculations based on the recipes that you enter. It is being provided by the Chanticleer Society along with its author (Robert Hess), to help not only cocktail enthusiasts, but also professional bars and bartenders.

Overview

The spreadsheet consists of several different sheets:

• Instructions: brief details on how to use this spreadsheet. Excel isn't a "document" focused tool, so the instructions are focused on being a "one pager" on how to use the app. This page on the Chanticleer Society wiki should be considered the definitive documentation for the spreadsheet.
• Volumes: a sheet that provides details on the different "volume" measurements you can use.
• Products: a sheet that provides details on the "ingredients" that can be used in your recipes. This list can, and should, be expanded to reflect not only the ingredients you may want to use, but the details about those ingredients as well (specifically cost and abv).
• Recipe Template: A "template" recipe form that you copy to a new sheet in order to enter new recipes.
• ...plus several prepopulated recipes you can use for examples

Recipe Entry

After creating a new sheet (by making a copy of the prepared "Recipe Template" sheet) you easily enter the specifics about your recipe using virtually any type of volumetric measurement you want. If a particular measurement unit isn't available, you can update the spreadsheet easily to use it.

Costing

Handy for commercial bartenders, the spreadsheet allows you to maintain a list of product costs, and if all of the products your recipe uses have been properly recorded, the costing pane will show you the cost of each ingredient, as well as the overall cost of the drink to make. You can also provide a target price, and it will tell you what the percentage of food cost is for the drink (most bars will typically use a 20% to 25% 'food' cost which will allow the rest of the cost to account for labor, rent, etc.). You can also provide a target percentage food cost, and it will let you know what to charge for the drink.

Scaling

Handy for home mixologists, once a recipe has been entered, you can scale the recipe up (or down) to suit your needs. You can change the measurement units to any that will work best for you. Not only will this make it easier to scale down a "for six people" recipe down to a single serving (or vice versa), but you can also use it to convert a recipe in ounces, to one that uses ml instead (just set the "serves" to "1", and change the measurement units to "ml")

Batching

Handy for making the recipe in large batches, you can indicate how much you want to make (such as "4 gallons"), and the recipe will be properly scaled to that volume. It will tell you how many drinks you can make, as well as how much of the "mix" to use per drink. You can not only change the measurement units to anything you want (ie, instead of "ounces", you can use "cups"), but you can also provide a "secondary" measure. This means that instead of "14 5/8 cups", you can split it into "14 cups plus 5 ounces".

ABV Calculator

With more and more attention these days being paid to monitoring the amount of alcohol in a drink, as long as the ABV details for each ingredient have been properly provided, this pane will show you the overall "ABV %" for the drink, but more importantly it will show you the actual amount of pure alcohol the drink contains, as well as what the "DrinkRate" is. The DrinkRate provides an estimate for how many hours it will take the average individual to fully metabolize the alcohol in this drink.

Note: The ABV calculation doesn't take into account the water that will be added to the drink by the ice which is either used to make the drink or added to the glass to keep it cool. This means that the true ABV of the drink will be slightly less then what is listed. If you need an ABV that includes the water from dilution, then you will need to determine how much water will be released into the drink, and then include that as an "ingredient".

Recipe Details

The final pane of the spreadsheet will provide an overview of the recipe. It includes the costing and abv information, as well as the originally provided recipe.

Quick Start Guide

Create A New Recipe

To start creating a new recipe, just do the following:

1. Make a "copy" of the "Recipe Template" page.
   1. Right-click on the "Recipe Template" page.
   2. Select "Move or Copy..."
   3. From the list, select the page that followed the "Recipe Template" page.
   4. Select "Create a copy"
   5. Select "OK"
2. Right click on the tab of the new page you created, and rename it to the name of your recipe.
3. In the sheet itself, also enter the name of the recipe.
4. If the recipe is designed to make more than one drink, change the "Makes 1 Drink" line to indicate that amount.
5. Enter in the type of glassware this drink should use (optional)
6. Enter in the garnish this drink should use (optional)
7. In the first line in the "amount" column (Row A, Line 7) enter the first measurement "amount" (ie "2" for "2 ounces").
8. In the first line in the "measure" column (Row B, Line 7) enter the measurement "unit" (ie "ounces" for "2 ounces).
9. Now, in the first line under the "ingredient" column (Row E, Line 7) enter the name of the first ingredient (ie. "gin")
10. Now, go down to Row A Line 8, and repeat for the next ingredient, and the next, etc.

Note:

• All cells of the recipe page that you are intended to enter details in are "white", the others are shades of gray
• Column C and D (as well as several others) are special columns, DO NOT enter any information in them

Red Arrows?

If you see a left-pointing red arrow next to a measurement unit, or a right-pointing red arrow next to an ingredient, this means that those values weren't found in the "Volumes" or "Products" sheets. The unit measure was probably a typo on your part, and you just need to enter the name slightly differently. A red arrow on the ingredient, probably means that particular ingredient hasn't yet been detailed in the "Products" page, we'll get to that later.

If the ingredient isn't found, it will only cause problems for the "costing" and "abv" part of the spreadsheet. If the measurement units is wrong, this will cause problems for most of the rest of the spreadsheet, so you will want to be sure to select from one of the measurements you will find listed on the "Volumes" sheet in order to fix this. If you have a particular measurement unit you would like to use that isn't there, we will get to that later too.

Costing

There typically isn't a lot to do in this pane. The only fields for you to alter, are the "If Sold At" and "Target %". If your cocktail menu typically has a standard price, you will want to set that as the price in the original "Recipe Template" sheet so that it always is the automatic value that comes up. We've set it to a default of $15 dollars, since that appears to be the direction many craft cocktail bars are heading these days. On individual recipes, you can change that value if you specifically want to sell this cocktail at a different price than your bars default price. This will then show you what the food-cost percentage is for this drink.

You can also change the "Target %" if you want to see what the cost of this drink should be for different food-cost percentages. And if your bar is operating at a different calculated food-cost percentage for its drink costs, you should also change that in the "Recipe Template" so all of your recipes will start from that point.

Scaling

This pane provides a quick way to scale a recipe up or down, or even simply change its measurement units.

If you are going to make the drink for 6 people instead of 1, it can be handy to use this to see the amounts in different measurement units. For example, instead of needing to use "6 tsp simple syrup" to make a recipe for 6 people, you can just set the "Serves" to 6, and then for the sugar line, change the measurement units to "oz" to see that this would use 1 ounce of syrup. Likewise, if you are entering a recipe listed in "ml", but you want to know what it would be in "ounces" (or vice versa), set the "Serves" to "1" and then change the measurement units to whatever you were wanting to use.

Batching

Similar to "Scaling" the "Batching" pane lets you change the recipe amounts in order to make a larger batch of drinks. The main difference here, is that Batching is providing a little more information, which is better for when you want to make the drink for a crowd.

You start off setting the "Batch Size" to something like "1 gallon". This will then show you how many drinks that you can make with this size of a batch. If that number is too high or low, just adjust your batch size until it gets you in the ballpark. You will also see how much of the batches liquid you need to measure out to make each drink. Remember, you will still need to shake/stir the drink with ice in order to both chill it, and dilute it properly. If you are wanting your drink to be pre-diluted (and you will be storing it chilled so it can just be poured out without any additional processing), you will need to add the estimated amount of water that will be added from shaking/stirring to the base recipe.

You will then see in the bottom part of this pane the recipe for the batch. Note that there are side-by-side areas for the measurements. This is so you can have a "big measure" amount (like cups), but instead of "fractional" cups, have the remainder flow over to a smaller measure (like ounces) to make it easier to use. If you leave the secondary measurement unit blank, it will put everything in the primary measurement unit.

ABV Calculator

There typically isn't much you will need to do in this pane. All you "can" do is change the measurement amounts being shown. If you always want to see these measures in something other then what is being shown now, you will want to update the "Recipe Template" page to reflect that.

Many people are focusing on showing the "ABV" percentage of the drinks they serve. And this pane will show you that. However, this isn't usually the best thing to use. If the drink has a high amount of "non-alcholic" ingredients in it, but the same amount of "alcoholic" ingredients as another drink, it will have a much lower ABV, but still have the same amount of alcohol. This is why knowing the actual alcohol in the drink is important. This pane will provide you with the amount of pure alcohol that the drink contains so you can better compare one drink to another. Even this number can be hard to understand however since it is just a number. For this reason, we've added a "DrinkRate" number, this number represents the number of hours that it will take the "average" person to process the alcohol in this drink.

Recipe Details

This final pane pulls together data from several of the other panes to attempt to show in a single place, the important details. You could copy/paste this data from here into a Word document (or whatever) in order to document this recipe and its details.