Free iPhone Apps to Survive Holiday Cocktail Parties

There are thousands of apps for your iPhone, so it is no surprise that you can navigate the holidays with your iPhone as well.   For this mission, I choose to focus solely on apps that can be had at my favorite price point - free.  In exchange for viewing a few ads, these apps will leave more money in your pocket to spend on gifts and tips for your bartender. 

Getting the Party Started
Simple Soiree is an app, and like it's title, is dead simple to use. It allows to set the time, place and location of the party. After you've done the basics, you can invite friends straight out of your contacts. The app sends an email to all and tracks, yes, no and maybes.  It even comes with a planner so you can build a shopping or to do list.
 
Party Food & Drinks
Party Planner promises to calculate the right amount of alcohol, ice, mixers, garnishes, cups and glasses you'll need for your party. Just answer a few questions about the number and drinking habits of your guests and it will tell you what to buy. A warning, this app takes itself a little too seriously. For the party I planned, I was told to buy 23 beers exactly when a case would work just fine. You can always drink the extra beer the next day.

Your guests will need to eat, so good thing that Epicurious has a nice little app that is loaded with holiday treats and party food.  It has one of the best features I've seen in any recipe app, with one click you can add all the ingredients into the handy shopping list.
 


At the Party
Where to start here?  There are a ton of fun apps to play with. Let's start with the toast. Toasty is the ice breaker extraordinaire, shake your phone and you are given an event that happened on any date that is a reason to have a drink,  and there are a lot of them. I'll toast to that.

If you want to go multinational, iCheers translates "cheers" for just about every language. The iChristmas app is a dashboard of Christmas sound effects, seems cheesy, but gets you in the mood.  Chistmasfy Me is a very simple way to add a holiday cheers to your photos. You are pretty limited in what you can do, but hey, it's free.

For music XMas Radio is a collection of 25 holiday themed radio stations so you can enjoy all of your holiday favorites no matter your musical preference. If you want to go beyond holiday tunes, we have to go with Pandora, need we say more? 

Your New Year's party will rock with the top 100 Top New Year's Eve Songs streamed in remarkably good quality. It's worth the download just to hear Jimi Hendrix's Auld Lang Syne, and there are 99 more! You can even download some virtual mistletoe, so not to miss that special holiday kiss.
If your party is for Hanukkah, like me, there are even apps for us. The Menorah app lights a virtual candle each night and sings along with the prayer. For kids, the Dreidel will keep them busy for at least a few minutes.

The Aftermath
After all the holiday fun it is time to go straight, well there is an app for that.  (sorry had to do it). iResolve will help get you started.  This app aids you in defining and keeping your New Years resolutions. If you slip, it will remind you. Once you are ready for some real work, Daily Burn tracks you daily work outs and calorie intake, nothing will keep you more honest.

Cheers and Happy Holidays from Drink of the Week!
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Jonas Halpren created Drink of the Week, an online celebration of cocktail culture, in 1999 because he didn't know what to order. Ten years and over a thousand cocktails later Drink of the Week is one on the top cocktail sites online. Drink of the Week has been mentioned in O Magazine, Family Circle, the Houston Chronicle, the Arizona Daily Star, the St. Petersburg Times and the Appleton Post-Crescent. More than 1500 blogs and websites link to Drink of the Week. Jonas has been Drink of the Week's main writer, editor, and reporter for 10 years. He is well-connected and active in the spirits industry, regularly attending and reporting on the Tales of the Cocktail, the Nightclub and Bar Expo, the Manhattan Cocktail Classic and many others.

Jonas lives in San Francisco with his 3 Persian cats and can often be found exploring SF's exploding cocktail scene, enjoying the outdoors or just cooking and entertaining at home.