Several App Store offerings have emerged with the precise aim of teaching you how to make that martini as well as other drinks. I took a look at a trio of cocktail app for Apple's tablet and found myself raising my glass in tribute to two of them. As for the third app, let's just say that sometimes I drink to forget.

Let's start the round with . The $5 app from is essentially a 241-page e-book, containing information on assorted spirits, bartending techniques, and drink styles. You can read through the app in either portrait or landscape views, turning pages with a flick of a finger or with the use of a helpful slider at the top of the screen. With the help of Cocktails HD, you can master everything from making simple syrup to creating a decorative fruit boat to garnish a tropical cocktail.

But what if you're not interested in any of that, and you just want cocktail recipes? Cocktails HD has you covered there. While its 300 or so cocktails are interspersed throughout the text of the e-book--just tap a drink for the recipe card to appear on screen--the app's home screen lets you jump to a list of drinks organized by type, such as Summer, Tropical, or Creamy. For a more complete list, tap the All Drinks tab for every recipe contained within the app. You've even got a search tab at your disposal that produces results as you type (though the on-screen keyboard covers up some of your results, especially in landscape view).

If you're feeling a little lucky, try the Random tab, which produces a random drink recipe when you give your iPad a cocktail shaker-like jiggle. (You can also trigger a random recipe with a tap of a button if, like me, you think the iPad is a little too large to shake.) The recent 2.0 update to Cocktails HD adds the ability to add a little focus to the randomness by turning drink categories on and off. The 2.0 update also broadened the app's beer and wine contents with "wine cards" that tell you about certain varietals and regions and a food-wine pairing tool that I found a little too rudimentary.

Cocktails HD is a gorgeous-looking app--the drink photos are big and bold, and the e-book itself has a font and color scheme that's easy on the eyes. But there are some interface inconsistencies. On some pages, a tap on the screen summons up a links pop-up that will take you to relevant recipes or techniques--a navigation tool I really appreciate. But the behavior isn't always the same from page to page. At times, it's easy to get lost in the app--a dedicated table of contents that would let you jump to specific chapters would be a welcome addition.