LeftBar: our AI generated cocktail party

From workplace apps and architecture to automations and AI, the LeftBrain team love to build wonderful things with technology. So, when we wanted to throw a rooftop summer party for our clients and partners, it was the perfect opportunity to showcase our talents and to have a bit of fun along the way.

With this brief in mind, we set about creating "LeftBar": a Progressive Web App (PWA) that combines the magic of mixology with the art of AI. Party guests used the app to answer a few AI generated questions about their work place tech stack and taste preferences, which were analysed to create them a bespoke signature cocktail recipe and visual that was brought to life at the bar.

To ensure the cocktails generated actually tasted good, we partnered with award-winning mixologist and cocktail consultant, Paul Martin from MIXXA, who provided us with the ingredients list and constraints that we asked the AI to work within. He also produces delicious cocktails in Guinness World Record winning time, managing to serve up almost 300 cocktails at our party in three hours!

"We like to use no-code tools, as they fit with LeftBrain's ethos of accessibility and innovation," explains Alan Avins, our CTO responsible for creating the LeftBar app. "We chose to use FlutterFlow, a web-based app builder that enables rapid development and seamless integrations without having to write any code. We also used n8n.io, another no-code automation tool, to manage the backend processing. For generating the questions and cocktail recipes, we used the latest version of ChatGPT-4o released just before our event, and DALL-E 3 for generating the accompanying images.”

“There were learnings along the way”, Alan explained. “We found that on the night, the AI seemed to favour a certain mix of ingredients. Our mixologist, Paul, ran out of blue curaçao pretty quickly as the AI must have understood it tasted good from somewhere on the internet! I tried to alter the prompts in real time, but if we were to do it again I’d make sure recipe variety and available alcohol quantities were included in the algorithm”.

The event was definitely unique, with our team serving canapés dressed as robots and our guests sipping blue cocktails on the rooftop of our offices overlooking the city. It’s safe to say that fun was had by all involved, and we managed to demonstrate how LeftBrain can build wonderful technology for any and every occasion.