When the drink isn’t in your favorites and you don’t fancy filling in ABV by hand, AlcoLog has three scanners on the Add Drink screen: Photo Recognition, the Menu Scanner and the Barcode Scanner. Each one pre-fills the drink form for you to check, and none of them saves anything until you tap Log.
Photo Recognition is free for everyone. The Menu Scanner and the Barcode Scanner are Premium.
# Step 1. Open the scanner panel
During a session, tap + Add Drink. In the top-right corner of the Add Drink screen is a camera button. Tap it and a small panel drops down with the three scanners:
- Photo Recognition
- Menu Scanner (marked PREMIUM on the free tier)
- Barcode Scanner (marked PREMIUM on the free tier)
The first time you pick each one, a short explainer sheet opens first. Tap Continue to carry on (with Premium, the barcode explainer’s button reads Scan), or switch on Don’t show this again to skip it next time. On the free tier, the Menu Scanner and Barcode Scanner explainers still open so you can see what they do; tapping Continue then offers Premium.
The scanners live on the live Add Drink screen only. When you are adding a past session, the same corner holds the receipt scanner instead.
# Step 2. Use Photo Recognition (free)
For a drink with no barcode (a pulled pint, a cocktail, a glass of wine), tap Photo Recognition. Choose Take Photo to use the camera, or Choose from Library to pick a shot you already have. Choose from Library works even if you never gave AlcoLog camera access.
While it works you’ll see Analyzing photo…. The photo is read entirely on your iPhone with Apple’s Vision framework: nothing is uploaded, and nothing is sent to our servers.
The result card starts with Looks like: and the drink type, then lists the Type, a Subtype where it can tell, a Size, and a How line that says how it decided: Brand recognized, Read from label or Best guess from photo. It can read a brand name printed on a label, but it cannot measure exact volumes or alcohol content. When the photo agrees with the type you already picked and no brand matched, the Size row reads Keep current size; a matched brand sets the type’s default size instead. Tap Use This to pre-fill the form, or Try Again for another shot.
If the photo isn’t clear enough, you get Couldn’t tell from this photo. Tap Try Again with better framing, or Close and pick the type by hand.
# Step 3. Use the Menu Scanner (Premium)
The Menu Scanner is for the one thing your drinks catalog can’t know: what this bar charges. It reads the drink and its price off the printed drinks menu.
- Tap Menu Scanner, then Take Photo or Choose from Library, and photograph the drinks menu.
- On Crop to the drink you ordered, drag the box over the ONE line you ordered. Drag inside the box to move it and drag a corner to resize it. The crop is what makes this work: reading a whole designed menu at once produces nonsense. Tap Scan This, or Retake for a new photo.
- After Reading the menu…, you see the Drink it read, with Matched in your catalog when it recognized the name. If the crop caught more than one drink, pick yours under Which drink?. If the line lists several prices (wine by the glass and by the bottle, for example), pick the one you ordered under Which one did you order?.
- Tap Use This Drink. The form fills in with the drink, the size printed next to the price you picked, the price in the menu’s currency, and the strength or calories if the menu prints them. If the menu prints no strength but the drink matched your catalog, the ABV comes from the catalog, and the result says The menu shows no ABV, so it comes from our drinks catalog.
If the crop is unreadable you get Nothing readable in that crop. Tap Scan Again and try a tighter crop on a single line, in better light. Everything is read on your iPhone with Apple’s Vision framework, and the photo is never uploaded.
# Step 4. Use the Barcode Scanner (Premium)
Tap Barcode Scanner and hold your iPhone over the barcode on the bottle, can or box, inside the box marked Point camera at barcode. The first time, iOS asks for camera access; if you declined earlier, the scanner shows Camera Access Required and you can turn it back on in the iOS Settings app under AlcoLog.
While AlcoLog looks the product up you’ll see Looking up product…. It searches Open Food Facts, USDA FoodData Central, LCBO and fatsecret at the same time and combines what they return. A barcode you have scanned before comes back instantly from your device.
What you see next depends on what was found:
- Product Found: the product name, ABV and calories per 100ml, with a Sources line naming where the data came from. When the sources name the product but give no ABV, and the name matches a drink in AlcoLog’s catalog, you’ll see Matched in your catalog - ABV & calories auto-filled: the catalog supplies the ABV and calories, even if the label listed calories. Tap Use This.
- Partial Match: a name but no ABV, and no catalog match. Type the ABV and calories under Fill in the missing values: and tap Save & Use.
- No match found: the barcode isn’t in any source, which is more common outside the US. Enter the values and tap Save & Use. AlcoLog remembers that barcode, so the next scan of it is instant.
Tap Scan Again at any point to try another barcode.
Correcting a wrong ABV. If a scan fills in the wrong strength, fix the ABV on the Add Drink form before you log. When you tap Log, AlcoLog saves your figure against that barcode, so the next scan offers your number instead of the database’s.
# Step 5. Check the form and log
Whichever scanner you used, you land back on Add Drink with a short confirmation (Filled from the photo, Filled from the menu or Filled from the barcode) and the reminder Check the values before you log. Adjust anything that looks off, then tap the Log button.
If no scanner can place your drink, the form is still right there: pick a type and a size and log it by hand. The scanners are shortcuts; the form is what actually saves the drink.
For drinks you log often, save them as a favorite once and skip the scanners from then on.
# What’s next
For a whole round from a past night, the receipt scanner adds every drink on a bar receipt in one go. Inside the app, the next tutorial is reading your drinking history so you can see what those scanned drinks add up to.
For Sinclair Method users, the Naltrexone Side Effects and TSM tracking with AlcoLog editorials cover the why behind the medication side. The story of when photo, menu and barcode moved behind one camera button is in v1.3.0: Menu Scanner, Seven Languages, and 1,174 Drinks.