We get plenty of questions about Fix Your Drink: here’s the most frequently asked, with some quick answers.

Fix Your Drink? What’s that?

Fix Your Drink is a small startup company based in Bridgeport, CT. We offer collections of cocktail recipe cards, with pictures, meant to simplify ordering drinks at restaurants–or making them at home–allowing people to engage in contemporary cocktail culture. These cards are designed to be given to waitstaff when ordering out-of-the-ordinary and classic cocktails to guarantee the accuracy of their preparation.  Click for our first press release.

Sounds great! …So where are the PDFs?

FYD cards are tangible, real-world items–they’re not printable PDFs floating in the FYD cloud.  We think FYD cards are great and offer real value–and honestly, we’re hoping to sell them and make a profit.

These are professionally designed, pre-printed recipe cards that are durable enough to be taken seriously, yet affordable enough to be given to waitstaff or friends. Cards of this quality simply cannot be reproduced at home, and are costly to have made in small quantities by professional print shops.

We also know that, if we made our cards available in high resolution on this web site, people might try using an ink-jet, plain paper printout as a substitute for them. Not only would we not make a sale, but also we know this kind of thing doesn’t work. We tried, and found the paper gets wrinkled and unreadable, and waitstaff will consistently lose it on the way to the bartender, dropping it or getting it mixed up inside their check pads.  We don’t want a non-functional, bad looking version of our product out there.

What’s the size of these cards?

They are standard business card size, 3½” x 2″.  They are printed on 15-point card stock (heavier than typical business cards), and have a glossy, water resistant coating on the front side.

Why aren’t the recipes on your web site?

For much the same reason we don’t provide PDFs.  The drinks we feature are hardly secrets: cocktail culture and the Internet have collided to make the recipes for our drinks available in abundance–that’s how we learned about them!  We do have a helpful ingredient matrix to give people a sense of the drinks, and to help them stock their own liquor cabinets.

Even if we went non-profit and put all the recipes on our site, we’ve learned–through hard experience–that handing over a well-designed yet disposable recipe card is a far better alternative to handing over a precious mobile device to a stranger, or leaving it by accident at a friend’s house.  Don’t believe us?  Try bringing up the Wikipedia recipe for a Negroni on your smartphone and ask yourself if you’re comfortable handing it over to your waiter, or even just showing him the recipe at the table.  It just doesn’t work. And that’s why there’s Fix Your Drink.

Are waitstaff or bartenders insulted by FYD cards?

We were initially afraid of this, too. Our experience has been that waiters/waitresses are actually delighted by these cards–it makes things a lot quicker for them, and it makes the customer happy.  And we’ve found most bartenders are eager to try these drinks out–it’s a welcome change for them, and often a learning experience.

How should I use FYD cards?

In a restaurant, just say to your server, “ask the bartender if s/he can make this” and remind them that the bartender can hold on to the card.  If you’re going to some friends’ house, you might bring the more esoteric ingredients with you, and then leave the cards with them to enjoy.

Can I order refills?

We will have refill ordering available shortly on our site.

Can I order a whole bunch, not just one case?

Contact us, we’ll work it out!

Where’s the iPhone/Android app?

We have no plans to create an app at this time. This venture is decidedly low-tech.  We don’t see the practicality of bringing up a cocktail recipe on a phone and then handing it to a waiter (believe us, we’ve tried).  Also, you don’t need another app to bring up a recipe on a mobile device–there are plenty of apps that try to do this already, AND there are a surfeit of recipe database web sites, too. We like the idea of just giving a card to a waitress, or leaving some at a friend’s house.  No muss, no fuss, no “I-just-soaked-my-new-iPad-in-Tanqueray” or “the-waiter-just-booked-a-flight-to-Aruba-on-my-Android” drudgery.

Are you really a front for some liquor company?

No, we are a married couple in Bridgeport, CT starting a small business based on what we see as a great opportunity.  That said, we’d love to partner with a liquor company or distributor: we can design a custom line of recipes to help promote a quality product.  Keep in mind, though, that FYD is dedicated to quality, class, and craft: we are incompatible with Bubblegum-flavored vodka and wet t-shirt marketing methods.

We welcome any and all ideas for ventures and collaboration: contact us with your thoughts!  We’d be particularly happy to work with Fairfield CT/Westchester NY area liquor store owners and restaurants for tasting events to help us spread the word.

Is Bacardi the same as Campari?

While both useful, these spirits with similar-sounding names are not interchangeable.  In fact, the straw that broke the camel’s back in the creation of FYD was that time we got a Negroni made with Bacardi. BLECHHH.