📘 BarMaven guide

BarMaven keeps track of everything you drink and pour — wine, beer, spirits and cocktails — for a home collection or a working bar. It works on a computer, tablet or phone, and you can share a cellar with family, friends or staff.

In one place you can:

• Catalogue bottles in seconds by scanning the barcode, photographing the label or searching by name.
• Know what to open — drinking windows, "Ready to drink" and a wine picked for tonight’s dinner.
• Make cocktails from 500 ready-made recipes, see what your bottles can make, and find or invent anything else with AI.
• Plan and shop — bar prep with use-by dates, a party planner, and a shopping list sorted by store.
• Run a bar — a fast Bar mode for staff, PINs, stock levels, par levels, receiving, invoices and stock takes.

1. Open BarMaven and choose Create account (if someone invited you, open the link in their email first — it brings you here and remembers the invite).
2. Enter your name, email and a password of at least 8 characters, then press Create account.
3. Protect your account: choose how you’ll confirm it’s you each time you sign in — an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password, Authy…) or a 6-digit code by email.
4. If you chose an authenticator app, scan the QR code with it and type the code it shows. You’ll then see 10 backup codes — copy, download or print them and keep them somewhere safe. Each works once if you ever lose your phone.
5. From then on, signing in is: email and password, then the code. Tick Keep me signed in on your own devices and you won’t be asked again for 30 days on that device.

A cellar is one collection — your home bar, a wine room, the cabin, a restaurant. You can own several and be invited to other people’s. Each has its own bottles, recipes, people and settings.

1. On My cellars, type a name (e.g. Home Bar) and press Create cellar. You become its owner.
2. Tap a cellar’s card to open its dashboard. ＋ New cellar makes another.
3. Cellars shared with you appear here too, labelled Editor or Viewer.

Every cellar opens on its dashboard: a summary of what’s in it and a door to every tool.

What’s on it

• Header: 🍸 Bar mode · Settings (people, access, AI key) · 📖 Cellar book · All Cellars · your name ▾ (account, theme, help, sign out).
• Search your collection — names, producers, barcodes and food pairings. Scan UPC searches by barcode with your camera; if the bottle isn’t in the cellar you can add it straight away.
• At a glance: Ready to drink · Cellar value · Pick a wine for dinner · Shopping list · Cocktails you can make · Running low · Bar prep · Zero-proof (each card appears once it has something to show).
• Collections: Wines, Beers, Spirits and Cocktails, with counts and quick buttons (Cocktails also has 🔎 Find and 📷 Menu).
• Tools: Bar mode, Inventory, Tasting journal, Insights, Bar prep, Party planner, Drinks library, What can I make?, Surprise me.
• Recent activity: what was added and opened lately.

BarMaven installs like an app — full screen, with its own icon — and pages you’ve opened recently still work without signal (handy in a basement cellar).

1. Android / Chrome: on My cellars, tap Install app (or the browser menu → Install app).
2. iPhone / iPad: in Safari, tap Share → Add to Home Screen.
3. Open it from the home-screen icon. Your sign-in carries over.

• Light / dark theme: your name ▾ → Light / dark theme. It’s remembered on each device.
• Small screens: when the header buttons don’t fit, they fold into a ☰ Menu button.
• Help on any page: the ❓ Help button in the header opens this guide at the right section.

Everyone in a cellar has a role. You can change it any time.

1. On the dashboard, press Settings (top right).
2. Under People & Access, type their email, choose Viewer or Editor, and press Invite.
3. They get an email with a link (valid for 7 days). You also see the link, with Copy link, if you’d rather send it yourself.
4. They open the link, sign in or create an account, and the cellar appears on their My cellars page.

Managing members (in the same window)

• Change someone’s role and press Save.
• Remove takes them out of the cellar (their account stays).
• Reset PW emails them a password link.
• Pending invites can be cancelled before they’re used.

Seen something you like in a cellar that’s shared with you? Copy it into one of your own cellars. Even viewers can do this — the original is never changed.

1. Open the bottle or cocktail and press 📋 Copy to my cellar (under its name).
2. Pick the cellar to copy into. Only cellars where you’re an owner or editor are listed. No cellar of your own yet? The page links you to create one.
3. For a bottle, choose A bottle I have (one bottle, bought today) or On my wishlist.
4. Press Copy to my cellar, then Open the copy to see it.

Several features use Google’s Gemini AI. They need an API key, which the cellar’s owner adds once in Settings → AI Integration. Editors can use it but never see it.

What uses AI

• Label photo · Ask AI to look it up · automatic tasting notes and pairings for scanned bottles · Auto-write Notes
• Suggest a drinking window · Pick a wine for dinner
• Find any drink · Scan a bar’s menu · AI background removal for photos
• Write a recipe for a bar-prep component · Invoice reading

• Tabs: In the cellar · Wishlist · Opened / Drunk / Finished · All — each with a count.
• Search by name, producer or style; 🌱 shows only zero-proof.
• Sort by newest, oldest, name, Drink soonest (wines by drinking window) or Highest value.
• Grid or list view. Tap a card to open the bottle. The photo badge opens its gallery.
• Cards show the essentials: quantity (× 6), how full an opened spirit is (🥃 ¼ left), drinking window chips.

Press ＋ Add on a collection (or the dashboard tile). Then let BarMaven fill in the details for you, three ways:

1. 📷 Scan barcode — point the camera at the barcode. No camera handy? Use a photo of it, type the digits, or use a USB/Bluetooth barcode scanner in the Barcode box.
2. 🔎 Search online — type a name (e.g. Metaxa 12). Results come from your own cellars first, then product databases. Pick one and press Use these details. Not listed? ✨ Ask AI to look it up.
3. 🏷️ Label photo — photograph the front label. The AI reads it (for wine: producer, vintage, region, grape and a drinking window) and the photo becomes the bottle’s picture.
4. Check the details, add anything personal (price, location, how many), and press Save.

• How many bottles — leave blank for one.
• Location (Rack A1, Fridge, Bar cart…) — suggestions come from places you’ve used.
• Purchased and Price paid — these drive Cellar value, the insurance list and Insights.
• Drink from / Drink by (wines) — or press ✨ Suggest a drinking window.
• Pairs with — type foods and press Enter (steak, oysters…). Used by Pick a wine for dinner and search.
• Par level — the fewest you want on hand (see Inventory).
• 🌱 Zero-proof — ticked automatically at 0.5% ABV or less.
• Rating, tasting notes — or Auto-write Notes to have the AI draft them.

The bar at the top of every bottle’s page shows where it is and, for wine, its drinking window.

1. Press 🍷 Drink it (🥃 Finished it for spirits). With several bottles it says Open one and takes one away.
2. Optionally add the date, a star rating, who you shared it with, and a note. It goes into your Tasting journal.
3. Opened bottles leave the cellar counts and value. Changed your mind? Put it back in the cellar.
4. For an open spirit or wine, set How full: Full, ¾, ½, ¼, almost empty. Running low on the dashboard watches these.

1. On Wines, Beers or Spirits, press ⭐ + Wishlist — all the lookups work here too.
2. Wishlist bottles show on the Shopping list and the Wishlist tab.
3. When you buy one, press ✓ Bought it. It moves into the cellar with today’s purchase date.

1. Open a bottle’s Gallery (the photo badge on its card, or Open Gallery on its page).
2. Take Photo or Choose Files (photos or PDFs). The newest photo becomes the cover; Set cover picks another.
3. Press ✏️ Edit on a photo to open the editor:
4. ✂️ Crop — drag the box or corners; shapes Free, Square, 4:5, 3:4, 16:9; then Apply crop.
5. 🔄 Rotate — left, right or flip.
6. 🪄 Background — Remove plain background (instant, free; best for a bottle on a wall, table or white sheet). Move Strength for more or less, and 👆 Tap to remove more for leftover patches. For busy backgrounds use ✨ AI remove.
7. Save replaces the photo; Save as a copy keeps both. Tick White background for a white rather than see-through result. Undo and Start again are always there.

• Ready to drink lists what to open first: past its best, drink this year, ready now. Wines still to hold are left out.
• Cellar value totals what you paid (bottles × price) and splits it by kind; it flags bottles without a price.
• Pick a wine for dinner: type the dish and press Suggest — up to three of your wines, each with a reason, its location and window. Works without AI too, using pairing rules and your “Pairs with” tags.

• Every Drink it / Open one is logged with the date, rating, note and who you shared it with.
• ＋ Log a tasting for something you tried elsewhere — it links to your bottle when the name matches.
• Search, filter by kind or year, or ★ 4+ · buy again. Edit or delete entries. Download CSV for a spreadsheet.
• Each bottle’s page shows its own tasting history.

Totals (bottles, value, opened this year, average rating) and charts: by kind, wine style, spirit type, beer style, country, grape, vintage decade, spending per year, bottles opened per month and where things are kept — plus your top-rated and most-opened bottles.

• Dashboard → 📖 Cellar book: every wine, beer, spirit and cocktail recipe in one printable book.
• Download PDF or Print; Show photos adds pictures.
• Includes a Value & insurance list — item, location, purchase date, quantity, price and total. Opened and wishlist bottles are left out.

1. Cocktails → ＋ Add Cocktail (or open one). Give it a name, glass, method (quick picks: Shake, Stir, Build…) and garnish.
2. In Recipe, type each line: amount · unit · ingredient. Amounts can be 3/4, 1 1/2, ¾ or .75. Enter moves to the next box.
3. The ingredient box suggests your bottles, your house-made components and about 300 bar staples as you type. Prefer a list? 📋 Browse ingredients.
4. Reorder with ▲▼ (or drag ⋮⋮), remove with ✕ (with Undo). The Recipe card shows the spec as it reads, with Copy recipe.
5. Press Save. You’re warned if you try to leave with unsaved changes.

1. Open What can I make? (dashboard tool or Cocktails tile).
2. Your recipes are sorted into Ready to make, One ingredient away and Two ingredients away. Each ✓ shows which bottle covers it.
3. Scroll to Your pantry and tick what you always have (juices, syrups, bitters, mixers, eggs…). Bottles are matched automatically.
4. Tap a red ✗ ingredient to put it on your Shopping list.

🛒 Best next buys (top of the page)

• Up to six single things to buy, each with how many more drinks it would let you make — e.g. “Ginger beer +9 drinks: Moscow Mule, Dark ’n’ Stormy…”.
• It counts your own recipes and the 500-drink library (your version wins when both have a drink). See all lists them, each linked to the recipe.
• “Gets 8 more closer” means it also covers one of several things those drinks are missing.
• Press Shopping list ＋🛒 to add it. The plainer name wins: it suggests “Tequila” rather than “Blanco tequila” when either would do.

• 500 recipes (398 cocktails, 102 mocktails) plus 247 common bottles, on three tabs: Cocktails · Mocktails · Bottles.
• Starter packs add a set in one go: The essential 20, Sours, Spirit-forward, Tiki night, Brunch, Highballs, Modern classics, Frozen & beach, Hot & holiday, Party & shots — and mocktail and bottle packs.
• Filter by spirit, style, Can make now or Hide added; search by name or ingredient.
• Each card shows the spec with ✓ for what you have. ＋ Add copies it into your recipes (you can then edit it freely).
• Searching for something that isn’t there offers 🔎 Find it with AI.

1. Open 🔎 Find a drink (library, cocktail list or dashboard). Type a drink’s name — or describe what you fancy.
2. Matching library recipes appear straight away with ＋ Add.
3. For anything else press ✨ Ask the AI. A named drink gets its standard spec; a description gets up to three suggestions.
4. Options: 🌱 Alcohol-free for zero-proof versions; 🍾 Use what’s in my bar to favour your bottles.
5. Tick the drinks to keep, rename if you like, and Save ticked drinks. If the AI wrote a classic the library knows, it offers the library’s checked spec instead.

1. At a bar you like? Open 📷 Scan a menu and photograph the menu straight on, in good light.
2. The AI reads every cocktail and mocktail with its description and price, and writes a balanced recipe. Ingredients it had to add for balance are marked added; brands stay in brackets.
3. Tick the ones to keep (drinks you already have start unticked) and rename any. Known classics offer the library’s spec.
4. Save ticked drinks. Each recipe notes the bar, the menu description and price, and that the amounts are estimates.

1. Open 🎲 Surprise me (dashboard tool, library, cocktail list).
2. Choose where from — Everything, My recipes or Library — and any filters: Only what I can make, 🌱 Alcohol-free, a spirit, a style.
3. For a group, pick One each for 2–8 people — everyone gets a different drink.
4. Press 🎲 Surprise me. Don’t fancy one? 🔁 Another swaps just that drink. Love it? ＋ Add to my recipes.

• The library’s Mocktails tab has 102 alcohol-free drinks in six groups, plus a Zero-proof shelf bottle pack (Seedlip, Lyre’s, Ritual…).
• Tick 🌱 Zero-proof on any bottle or recipe; it’s automatic at 0.5% ABV or less. Lists, Surprise me, Find a drink and Bar mode all have a 🌱 filter.

1. Open 🧪 Bar prep from the dashboard. Each card is one component (honey syrup, orgeat…).
2. Made a batch? Press ✓ Made a batch today. Or Set date or shelf life to enter it by hand.
3. Cards show ⛔ Past use-by, ⏳ Use soon (2 days or less), ✓ Fresh or None on hand, and the dashboard’s Bar prep card lists what’s due.

1. Tap any card to open its recipe sheet: ingredients, method, tip, shelf life, storage, batch size, allergens — and the cocktails of yours that use it.
2. No recipe saved yet? If the prep library knows it, Save this recipe to … copies it in (names are matched loosely — “Rich Demerara” finds Demerara syrup).
3. Your own creation (a “Chilli Honey”)? ✨ Write a recipe with AI.
4. ✏️ Edit recipe opens the Components window; 🖨 Print prints just the sheet.

• 40 recipes: syrups (simple, rich, demerara, honey, ginger, orgeat, grenadine, falernum…), cordials, mixes, juices, a shrub, saline, infusions and batters.
• Your cocktail recipes use N of these — ＋ Add all adds what your recipes call for. Or filter by kind and add one at a time.
• Added components arrive with their recipe, shelf life, storage, batch size and allergens filled in, and link to every recipe that uses them.

• On Surprise me, the drinks library, Find a drink, What can I make? (red ✗) and Bar mode (“Not in stock”), missing ingredients show ＋🛒.
• Tap one: a message confirms it, and every card using it changes to ✓ on list. Tap again to take it off.
• Bottles (spirits, liqueurs, wine, beer…) go on your wishlist; groceries (juice, syrups, mixers, fruit, eggs…) go on the groceries list, remembering which drink they’re for.

• Open it from the dashboard’s Shopping list card (Full shopping list →) or the message after tapping an ingredient.
• Add something — type anything; bottles are sorted onto the bottle list automatically.
• ✓ Bought moves a bottle into the cellar. ✓ Got it ticks off a grocery — and for juices, syrups, mixers and garnishes also ticks them in your pantry.
• ✕ removes anything. Clear groceries empties that list.
• 📋 Copy list copies it as text (grouped by store) to send to whoever’s shopping; 🖨 Print prints it.
• 🍹 lets you make N more drinks under an item shows what buying it unlocks. 💡 Worth adding suggests the four best things that aren’t on the list yet — ＋ Add puts one on.

1. At the bottom of the shopping list, open 🏪 Your stores and add the shops you use (e.g. BC Liquor, Save-On-Foods, Costco).
2. Set a usual store for bottles and one for groceries — new items go there automatically.
3. Change any item’s store with its picker; ＋ New store… adds one on the spot. BarMaven remembers: move ginger beer to Costco once and it goes there next time.
4. The list shows 🏪 By store (one section per shop, plus Any store) or 🍾 By type.

1. Open 🎉 Party planner. Enter the number of guests and drinks each.
2. Tick the cocktails. It shares the drinks out (or type your own numbers).
3. You get batch recipes scaled for each cocktail in oz and ml, with dashes and garnishes counted.
4. One shopping list knows what’s already in your cellar and pantry, estimates 750 ml bottles and how many limes or lemons. ⭐ Add the missing bottles to my shopping list in one tap.
5. Print it, or bookmark/share the page address — it keeps the whole plan.

1. Add your bottles (scan, invoice or library bottle packs) and recipes (library packs, menu scan).
2. Dashboard → Inventory → set a Par on what you stock.
3. Bar mode → ⋯ → Staff & PINs → add each bartender; tick Manager for anyone allowed to unlock.
4. On the bar tablet: sign in with Keep me signed in, open Bar mode, install it to the home screen, then ⋯ → Lock this device.

1. Open 🍸 Bar mode (dashboard header). Type in the big search box — Enter opens the top match. Filters: Can make, base spirit, Shaken / Stirred / Built, 🌱.
2. The spec card shows large amounts, glass, method and garnish, and which bottle each pour comes from with its level. ×2 / ×4 / ×8 rescale it. It’s read-only, so a wet thumb can’t change a recipe.
3. Press ✓ Made N: the drinks are logged and the pours come off the bottles (the open bottle first). Undo puts them back.
4. Tap a bottle for its bottle sheet: set how full the open one is, add a bottle, or 86 it.
5. Stock tab: every bottle with a level bar (“Low & out” filter). Shift tab: drinks made today by cocktail and bartender, what was poured, 86’d and low.

1. Staff & PINs: add each bartender with a name and a 4–6 digit PIN (no account or email). Easy PINs like 1234 are refused. Tick Manager for people who may unlock the device.
2. In Bar mode, Who’s working? → tap your name → PIN. Drinks, pours, levels and 86s are logged under that name.
3. ⋯ → Lock this device: staff can only use Bar mode; every other page and signing out send them back. A manager’s PIN or the account password unlocks it.

• Stock — every bottle grouped by type, with − / ＋ and a Par box (keep at least this many). Search, kind and location filters; totals for bottles, stock value, below par and out.
• Reorder — everything under par with how many to order. Order sheet (CSV), Print, or ⭐ Add all to the shopping list.
• History — every change: when, who (bartender or account), why (Received, Invoice, Poured, Stock take, Level set, 86’d, Undone) and what’s left.

1. Inventory → Receive. The camera stays on — scan bottle after bottle (a USB/Bluetooth scanner works too).
2. Known barcodes go +1, or +6 / +12 for a case.
3. New barcodes are looked up online and added in one tap, with quantity and cost.
4. A running tally shows what came in; Undo reverses the last scan.

1. Inventory → Invoice. Photograph the invoice or receipt (up to 4 pages, photo or PDF).
2. The AI reads each line: name, bottles (cases multiplied out), size and price each.
3. Lines are matched to your bottles. Check them, choose new bottle for the rest, and untick non-stock lines (tonic, ice…).
4. Apply adds the stock and updates prices and purchase dates.

1. Inventory → Stock take. Count one location or everything.
2. For each bottle: full bottles with − / ＋, plus the open bottle in ¼ steps.
3. An unfinished count is kept on the device, so you can stop and carry on.
4. Save sets the stock and shows the differences in bottles and money.

• Two-step sign-in: see your method, switch between authenticator app and email codes, or make new backup codes.
• Sign out of all other devices — useful after using someone else’s computer or losing a phone.
• Email me a password link to change your password (it signs you out everywhere else).
• Changes ask for your current password. You’re emailed whenever your sign-in method changes or a backup code is used.