TheCocktailDB
Cocktail and drink recipe API — 600+ drinks with ingredients, measures, glass types, and images. Sister project of TheMealDB with the same access model.
🟢 Online · 78 ms
99.86%
Free test key for development; supporter key for production
No key required
Free alternatives (live ranking)
- TheMealDB — 🟢 Online · Free test key for development; supporter key for production
- Spoonacular — 🟢 Online · Free key, 150 points/day (roughly 50 recipe searches)
- Open Food Facts — 🟢 Online · No key, fair-use limits, requires an identifying User-Agent
Compare TheCocktailDB with…
- TheCocktailDB vs TheMealDB — Free test key for development; supporter key for production
- TheCocktailDB vs Spoonacular — Free key, 150 points/day (roughly 50 recipe searches)
- TheCocktailDB vs Open Food Facts — No key, fair-use limits, requires an identifying User-Agent
Frequently Asked Questions
Does TheCocktailDB require an API key?
No, TheCocktailDB is freely accessible without registration or an API key.
What is TheCocktailDB's free tier?
Free test key for development; supporter key for production
Is TheCocktailDB currently online?
We check TheCocktailDB every hour. The current status is shown at the top of this page. You can also see the 30-day uptime history in the chart above.
Implementation notes
When to use TheCocktailDB
TheCocktailDB is TheMealDB's sister project for drinks — 600+ cocktail recipes with ingredients, measures, glass types, alcoholic/non-alcoholic flags, and images. Same access model: test key '1' free for development, supporter key for production. It's the standard dataset for bartending apps, party planners, and 'what can I make with what's in my cabinet' projects (the ingredient filter endpoint is genuinely useful).
Common pitfalls
- The ingredient filter (`filter.php?i=Gin`) matches single ingredients only on the free key — multi-ingredient intersection ('gin AND lime') is a supporter-key feature. Free-tier workaround: fetch per-ingredient lists and intersect client-side.
- Same twenty-numbered-fields ingredient shape as TheMealDB (`strIngredient1..15` here). Same fix: normalize to an array at the fetch boundary.
- Measurements are free-text strings ('1 1/2 oz', '2 shots', 'Juice of 1/2') — not structured quantities. Unit conversion features need a parser; budget an afternoon for the long tail of formats.
- Random cocktail (`random.php`) is the most-used endpoint in tutorials but returns alcoholic drinks by default — check `strAlcoholic` if your app needs a family-friendly mode.
Quick start (bash)
curl "https://www.thecocktaildb.com/api/json/v1/1/filter.php?i=Gin"Embed this badge
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