Bartender's Companion - Drink recipe management software

Upgrading to Bartender's Companion 2005

Starting with Bartender's Companion 2005 you will need a version upgrade license to upgrade to the latest version of the software. The upgrade from Bartender's Companion 2004 to Bartender's Companion 2005 is free. Free upgrade licenses will be e-mailed to Bartender's Companion 2004 users on Tuesday, July 19, 2005. If you did not receive your free license, please post a message on the Bartender's Companion Licensing Forum. We will get you your upgrade license right away.

We recommend that you obtain your Bartender's Companion 2005 upgrade license before installing the upgrade.

We also recommend that you backup your Bartender's Companion 2004 data prior to installing the upgrade.

Click here to go to the download page.

What's New in Bartender's Companion 2005

Compare recipes, ingredients, etc.

Bartender's Companion 2005 lets you view side-by-side comparisons of any two recipes, ingredients, glossary items, grocery lists or inventory items.

Improved recipe cost element

The cost element of the recipe view has been improved to include both cost per serving and total recipe cost for each recipe ingredient.

Improved recipe review interface

The interface to create and edit recipe reviews has been improved to make it more intuitive and user-friendly.

Recipe review capture

Bartender's Companion 2005 lets you capture recipe reviews in a manner similar to recipe, ingredient and technique capture.

Reset recipe nutrition

The recipe nutrition interfaces include a button to clear the nutrition values.

Improved on hand feature for recipes

The introduction of inventory items has improved the way Bartender's Companion determines whether you can make a recipe with the ingredients you have on hand. An inventory item (e.g. milk) can be associated with multiple ingredients (e.g. whole milk, 1%, 2% and skim) and you can specify which of the ingredients is the default (i.e. preferred) ingredient (e.g. 2% milk). In this way, if you specify that your milk inventory item is on hand, Bartender's Companion knows that you can make recipes that include whole, 1%, 2% or skim milk. This is particularly useful for ingredients such as ground beef which have many similar entries.

Recipe and technique media

Audio and video files can be added to recipes and techniques.

Mass assign recipe types

Bartender's Companion 2005 lets you quickly assign a recipe type to a selection of recipes. For example, you might want to add the recipe type "Cocktail" to a selection of 100 recipes. In the same way you can remove a recipe type from a selection of recipes. This is particularly useful when you have imported a large number of recipes from another user whose recipe typing scheme doesn't match yours. For example, you might import 100 coffee recipes and want to change the recipe type from "Coffee" to "Hot Drinks". This is easily accomplished by removing the "Coffee" recipe type and adding "Hot Drinks".

Improved recipe ingredient link interface

Many changes have been made to the recipe ingredient linking module. Now, if you are trying to link a recipe ingredient to the ingredient database but are missing the required measure, Bartender's Companion will try to create it automatically. For example, if you are trying to link a recipe ingredient such as "1 oz gin" but the only measure for "gin" in the ingredient database is "1 pint" Bartender's Companion will automatically create a "1 oz" measure for you and link to it. If a measure can't be created automatically then you can create one manually using the new "Add Measure" button. Another useful addition to the link interface is the "Recently Used Items" folders added to the ingredient and recipe browse modes. Bartender's Companion remembers the last 10 items you linked to.

Update link quantity when recipe ingredient quantity

When you change a recipe ingredient quantity (e.g. you change "1 oz rum " to "2 oz rum" Bartender's Companion will prorate the link quantity accordingly.

Recipe, ingredient and technique capture buttons (including case buttons)

Capture buttons (i.e. a button to capture recipe name, a button to capture recipe ingredients, etc.) have been added to the recipe, ingredient and technique capture interfaces. Also, new buttons have been added to change the case of captured text to lower case, title case and sentence case.

1/4, 1/2, 3/4 characters added to ingredient and procedure tabs of recipe window

Buttons for "¼", "½", and "¾" have been added to the ingredient and procedure tabs of the new and edit recipe windows (next to the accent symbols).

Scanned recipe images

Scanned images of entire recipes (from magazines, cookbooks or handwritten recipes) can be added to Bartender's Companion recipes.

Customize %DV calculations

Until Bartender's Companion 2005 all %DV (percent daily value) calculations were based on a 2000 calorie diet. In Bartender's Companion 2005 you can change the number of calories used in the calculation to more closely match your diet (e.g. 2500 calories, 1500 calories, etc.).

Recipe display options

Bartender's Companion 2005 lets you display recipe ingredients in a single column or two columns. Also, you can choose to have recipe images displayed to the right of ingredients or by themselves.

Optimize cookbook chapters

Bartender's Companion performs best when cookbook chapters contain approximately 100 recipes (or fewer). This also makes cookbook chapters easier to read and navigate. Bartender's Companion 2005 includes a feature that will automatically organize a cookbook chapter into subchapters in order to optimize performance. You can choose to create subchapters with a given number of recipes each or create subchapters to organize your recipes alphabetically (i.e. one subchapter for your recipes that begin with "A", another for recipes that begin with "B", etc.).

Ingredient barcode data

Barcode data can be entered for ingredient measures. This data is used by the new barcode lookup and inventory scan features (described below).

Improved ingredient pricing

In Bartender's Companion 2005 you can specify multiple prices for an ingredient. For example, Coca Cola might cost $0.69 per liter and $0.99 for 2 liters at one store and $0.75 per liter and $1.25 for two liters at another store. Bartender's Companion now prices grocery lists according to the quantity you are purchasing and where you are shopping.

Easier ingredient density estimation

Bartender's Companion needs to know the density of an ingredient in order to calculate the mass of a given volume of the ingredient. By entering the mass of any volume measure (normally available on product packaging) Bartender's Companion can determine the density and calculate the mass of all other volume measures. However, when the mass of a volume measure is not known the density can be estimated. In Bartender's Companion 2005 you can select a similar ingredient from the Ingredient database and its density will be used. For example, if you are creating a new ingredient entry for "Sprite" and don't know the mass of a volume measure you can select a similar ingredient such as "7-Up" or "Carbonated beverage, lemon-lime soda" to estimate the density.

Easier ingredient capture

A new menu item has been added for capturing ingredients.

Reset grocery list

A popup menu has been added to the grocery list task to remove all grocery list items from the selected grocery list.

New grocery list features

Bartender's Companion 2005 includes many changes to the grocery list module. One of the most important changes is the handling of items on hand. For example, if you have one apple on hand and you add two apples to your grocery list and specify that you want items on hand to be deducted from your grocery list, only one apple will be added to your grocery list. But more importantly, if you add two more apples to the same grocery list Bartender's Companion remembers that the one apple you have on hand has already been accounted for in that grocery list so both apples will be added to the grocery list.

Create grocery list to restock all or part of inventory

Bartender's Companion makes it easy to create a grocery list to restock your inventory. For example, you could create a grocery list to restock your bar, your refrigerator or your entire inventory. The quantities on the resulting grocery list will reflect the differences between your inventory item order up to levels (the quantity on hand when your inventory is "full") and your on hand levels.

Merge grocery list items

singular or plural) then they will be combined into a single item. For example, "1 lemon" and "2 lemons" will be combined to form a single grocery list item: "3 lemons". When Bartender's Companion is unable to automatically combine to two grocery list items (because the software could not determine whether the two items were the same) then you can manually combine them using the new merge items interface.

Process grocery list receipt

Bartender's Companion 2005 enables you to update your inventory levels and ingredient pricing after you have completed a shopping trip.

Inventory management

Another important change in Bartender's Companion 2005 is the introduction of powerful inventory management tools. It is now much easier to specify and view what you have on hand. The new tools let you specify what you actually have on hand, how much you normally keep on hand (i.e. desired inventory level), minimum order quantities (e.g. when ordering don't order less than 1/2 lb), and much more. The inventory module is seamlessly integrated with the recipe, ingredient, grocery and store modules.

Inventory worksheet

Bartender's Companion can now print inventory worksheets to help you determine what you have on hand in your bar. The worksheet prints out the desired inventory items with columns for the old inventory values (i.e. the values in the database) and the new inventory values (i.e. the quantities actually in your bar).

Inventory items

The new inventory management module required the introduction of a new concept in Bartender's Companion: inventory item. Inventory items correspond to things that you have in your bar (gin, rum, limes, etc.) and control how these things are ordered. For example, by creating an inventory item called "gin" you can control how gin is ordered and specify how much you have on hand.

Inventory updates via barcode scans

Users with barcode scanners (keyboard wedge style) can now quickly increment and decrement their inventory by scanning product barcodes. The inventory scan window can be opened and configured by scanning special barcode sequences, thus allowing completely hands-free operation.

Barcode lookup

Users with barcode scanners can quickly look up ingredient and inventory item records simply by scanning product barcodes. The barcode lookup window can be opened and configured by scanning special barcode sequences, thus allowing completely hands-free operation.

Stores

Bartender's Companion 2005 introduces the concept of stores to handle the fact that ingredients are sold at different prices at different stores. Now you can create your own stores and specify which ingredients are sold in which stores and at what cost. Given that Bartender's Companion 2005 also lets you specify where you are shopping (you can choose one or more stores for each grocery list) grocery list cost values more accurately reflect what you will actually pay at the supermarket. Also, you can specify the grocery aisles for each store and customize the order of the grocery aisles.

Customize grocery aisles for each store

Each store can have any number of grocery aisles. You can change the order of the grocery aisles for each store (i.e. the order in which the grocery aisles appear on a grocery list).

Associate stores with grocery lists

When you create a grocery list in Bartender's Companion 2005 you can specify where you will be shopping. This enables the software to choose the appropriate ingredient prices for the ingredients you will be purchasing.

HTML view customization

The new view options allow you to control the order of view elements in any HTML view. For example, you can now move the cooking tips element below then author notes element in the recipe view. The same applies to the ingredient, grocery list, inventory item, store, glossary item and technique views.

List view customization

You can change the display properties (heading background color, heading text color, body background color, body text color, hyperlink text color and body text style) for any list view.

Resizable task columns

Column widths can now be changed in any list view.

Print lists

Any list view can now be printed (e.g. recipe list, ingredient list, etc.). You can choose to display all items in the list or only the selected items. You can also choose a custom heading for the printout, decide whether or not to include column headings and choose the number of columns to print.

HTML index

When exporting recipes, ingredients, grocery lists, glossary items or techniques as HTML files, you can now choose to have an HTML index page generated automatically.

Recently used items

Many dialogs (including add calendar items, add menu items and link recipe ingredient) include a recently used item folder. This folder contains the last 10 items used in each context. This makes selecting frequently used items much quicker.

Drag and drop favorites

The drag and drop interface for favorites has been improved. Dragging an item onto a favorite folder no longer opens the favorite window.

Verify backup file

The verify backup utility allows you to verify the integrity and version of a backup file without performing a database restore.

SMTP e-mail

Bartender's Companion's mail protocol has changed from MAPI to SMTP. This enables Bartender's Companion to send recipes via e-mail using most e-mail accounts. The only requirements are that your mail provider support mail relaying.

Enhanced FDX file format

The FDX file format has been expanded to support profile data, activities, inventory items, stores and media (audio and video). FDX files generated by Bartender's Companion 2005 can be imported by Bartender's Companion 2004 but the new data will be ignored.

Improved license management

Radium Technologies' licensing system has been improved to support more complex licensing schemes (combinations of product upgrades and version upgrades, etc.).

Save license information to file

Bartender's Companion license data can now be saved to an XML file. This enables you to save your license data on a floppy disk (just in case your hard drive crashes). It also avoids having to retype all of your license information if you need to reinstall Bartender's Companion.

Web-based error reporting

Bartender's Companion's automatic error reporting system has changed from an e-mail system to a web-based system. When an error occurs you will have the option to send the details of the error via the Internet to Radium Technologies. This will help the developer diagnose the problem and fix it in the next release or service pack. You will not receive an e-mail reply (or any other reply) regarding this error information. For help diagnosing or fixing a problem, please visit the Radium Technologies support forum at www.radiumforums.com.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts have been added to the back and forward navigation buttons.

Delete orphaned photographs

A tool has been added to delete photographs that for one reason or another are no longer referenced by recipes, ingredients or techniques.