Introducing Sidecar: An app for cocktail enthusiasts
I have an insatiable passion for food, and drinks, and travel, and people, and getting my hands dirty. Hospitality is in my DNA.
You may not know it, but I basically lived an entire past life in that industry. Highlights include running room service to Fab Melo, living and working in a hotel in Nashville for three months, and spilling a massive tray full of rain-drenched cigarette butts on my boss.
Once I got out of it, well, I never fully got out of it. I led a seven-person marketing team at BevSpot, a beverage-focused software startup, and helped grow the company from 10 to 90 employees in less than a year.
And now, I run the world’s only home bartending competition, the Home Bar Awards, and in just three years have grown it to over 40,000 followers on Instagram. We’ve had winners from Hong Kong to Australia to Israel. We’ve also partnered with brands like Luxardo and WhistlePig and world-famous cocktail bars like The Dead Rabbit and Amor Y Amargo.
All this is to say, my entire life has pretty much led me to this moment. Today, in partnership with my two co-founders, we are launching an app called Sidecar. Our mission is to build the world’s largest community of cocktail enthusiasts. To get there, we’ve got a long way to go.
DOWNLOAD SIDECAR
At its core, Sidecar lets you check in cocktails. Originally, we built this for use while out at a bar, but with quarantine, we’ve pivoted to allow users to check in drinks they make at home. So how does it work? Once you drink the cocktail, you rate and review it. Eventually, this check-in data will help others find cocktails nearby that they would like based off of their flavor profile. Yes, it’s like Untappd for cocktails. But that’s where the similarities end. Beers are scannable. Cocktails are not. They’re complicated. Their ingredients are complicated. And their ultimate creators, the bartenders (or ourselves while in quarantine), are humans who are… complicated. This introduces lots of challenges to capturing this data in a structured way that’s consistent across tens of thousands of bars and households. But I don’t want to bore you with the details. These are complex problems, but they’re problems that are really fun to solve.
We’re a three-person team: me, a designer, and a developer. All of us do this in our free time. The app is just out of beta, so we’ve got a long way to go before we’re TikTok (LOL!). But eventually, this check-in data will help others find cocktails nearby that they would like based off of their flavor profile. Looking for a great cocktail nearby? Open Sidecar.
When our developer Luke first showed me the check-in process he built, I got goosebumps. Not because of a sleek UI, but because I just knew that other cocktail nerds like me would, well, nerd out. I realize that most people who read this probably don’t obsess over cocktails like I do. I don’t expect a sympathy download. But if you do enjoy a cocktail out from time to time, we can use all the help we can get. We’re building it with you in mind, so we need feedback ASAP.
I want to give a special thank you to a few people. First, my wife Alex who has to deal with my cocktail shenanigans on a daily basis. Seriously, if I'm not at work or spending quality time with my family, I'm working on something cocktail related. Second, Greg Avola and Trace Smith at Untappd who, whether they realize it or not, were instrumental in helping us shape the app strategy (👊 Greg Mullen for the connect). And third, the community of people who have supported this idea from the start. This includes friends, family, and the greater cocktail community.
If you’re interested in showing some love, download the app and let me know what you think!