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Soda Vault

Create Amazing Cocktails With What You Have

The Problem

Home bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts faced a common frustration: having ingredients but not knowing what drinks they could make. Existing cocktail apps were either too complex, lacked comprehensive databases, or didn't focus on what users already had at home. This led to wasted ingredients and missed opportunities for creativity.

The Solution

Soda Vault is a mobile-first cocktail discovery platform that lets users input their available ingredients and instantly discover from 16,000+ cocktail recipes they can make right now. The app combines smart ingredient matching, community features, and beautiful visual design to make home bartending accessible and fun.

Key Features

Instant Cocktail Discovery

The core feature allows users to input their available bar ingredients and instantly discover from 16,000+ cocktails they can make. This eliminates the guesswork and reduces ingredient waste, making home bartending accessible to everyone.

Tailored Flavor Filters

Users can explore drinks by flavor profile, base spirit, or occasion. Whether looking for something refreshing for summer or a warm winter cocktail, the app helps find the perfect drink to match any mood or event.

Custom Recipe Builder

The user-friendly recipe builder lets bartenders design and save their own cocktail creations. Users can share their masterpieces with the community, fostering creativity and experimentation.

Bartending Community

Connect with fellow cocktail enthusiasts, discover user-created recipes, and get inspired by collections from home bartenders around the world. The community aspect transforms the app from a simple recipe database into a social platform for cocktail lovers.

Daily Rewards System

Users earn points through daily engagement, which unlock premium features and content. This gamification keeps users coming back and builds a habit of exploring new cocktails.

Technical Architecture

The platform is built on a modern tech stack designed for scalability and performance:

  • Frontend: React Native with Expo for cross-platform mobile development
  • Backend: Django REST Framework for robust API development
  • Database: PostgreSQL with optimized indexing for fast queries across 16,000+ recipes
  • Infrastructure: Nginx reverse proxy, Docker containers, AWS EC2
  • AI Integration: FLUX.1 and GPT-4o for automated image generation and metadata extraction

Key Achievements

5.0⭐ App Store Rating

Achieved and maintained a perfect 5.0-star rating on the App Store with consistent positive reviews. Users praise the app's ease of use, comprehensive database, and community features:

"Not only a useful tool, but also a fun way to try out new drinks. Highly recommend!! Nothing similar to the amount of possibilities this app gives." - Alexa T.

"Been wanting to learn how to make drinks for a while now, this app has not only given me so many new favourite drinks, but tells you step by step how to make them! The perfect app for getting into bartending." - Nick L.

"It's a great way to find new ways to combine my favorite ingredients!" - Samuel A.

Growing to 150+ Monthly Active Users

Built a dedicated user base from scratch through organic growth and word-of-mouth. Achieved consistent month-over-month growth while maintaining high engagement rates and user satisfaction.

80% Reduction in API Latency

Initial performance testing revealed slow query times as the database grew to 16,000+ recipes. By implementing strategic PostgreSQL indexing on frequently queried fields and optimizing Django QuerySets to reduce N+1 queries, we reduced average API response times from 500ms to under 100ms.

70% Cost Reduction Through AI Automation

Sourcing high-quality cocktail images was time-consuming and expensive. By building an automated pipeline using FLUX.1 for image generation and GPT-4o for metadata extraction, we reduced operational costs by 70% while improving visual consistency across the platform.

Technical Challenges

Ingredient Matching Algorithm

The core challenge was building an efficient algorithm to match user ingredients with 16,000+ cocktail recipes. The solution involved:

  • Normalized ingredient database with synonym mapping (e.g., "lime juice" = "fresh lime juice")
  • Fuzzy matching to handle user input variations
  • Weighted scoring system prioritizing exact matches while suggesting "almost possible" drinks
  • Real-time filtering with sub-100ms response times even with complex queries

Database Optimization

As the database grew to 16,000+ recipes with complex ingredient relationships, query performance became critical. We implemented:

  • Composite indexes on frequently filtered combinations (base spirit + flavor profile)
  • Database-level full-text search for cocktail discovery
  • Query result caching with Redis for popular ingredient combinations
  • Pagination with cursor-based navigation for infinite scroll

Mobile Performance

React Native performance optimization required careful attention to rendering and memory management:

  • Implemented FlatList virtualization for large collections
  • Used React.memo and useMemo to prevent unnecessary re-renders
  • Optimized image loading with progressive JPEGs and lazy loading
  • Implemented offline-first architecture with local caching

Lessons Learned

Building Soda Vault taught me valuable lessons about full-stack development at scale:

  • Start with performance in mind: Optimizing after the fact is harder than building efficiently from the start
  • User feedback is invaluable: Direct user input shaped many of our most successful features
  • Automate early: The AI image pipeline saved countless hours and improved consistency
  • Monitor everything: Comprehensive logging and analytics helped identify bottlenecks quickly

What's Next

Future plans include implementing machine learning recommendations based on user taste profiles and drinking history, expanding the community features with cocktail challenges and competitions, and building partnerships with professional bartenders for exclusive recipe content. Additionally, exploring AR features to visualize cocktails before making them and integrating with smart home devices for automated shopping lists.