Here are 18 iPhone drinking apps that will keep track of how much you're drinking, store drink recipes, help you figure out what to tip your bartender, and more.

Which have you tried out? Tell us more in the comments!

BeerCounter -- You know how you start off the night knowing exactly how many beers you might intend to consume, and by the end of the night you've actually consumed the equivalent of a personal keg? This app is a free and simple beer counter. Every time you consume another drink, add one to the roster. No cheating, this app might be better kept in the hands of your designated driver.

PigUpLines -- Can't find the right words for that special girl in the tube top standing by the bar? Using PigUpLines will surely bring her to her knees. What? I mean, just listen to this one: "Excuse me, do you have any raisins? How about a date?" and how about "The only thing your eyes haven't told me is your name." This app is $1.99, but as classy as tickling a pink pig for a pick up line is, this app should be free. [iTunes link]

Drink Timer -- Late night out on the town? Use this app when you start drinking so that the next morning you'll know whether you're still drunk or not. When the nice officer pulls you over the next morning, just wave your iPhone in his face and tell him, "but my iPhone says I'm sober!" This app is $0.99 but again, should probably be free. [iTunes link]

Bar Hopper -- If you like BeerCounter and Drink Timer, then you could invest $1.99 to get both of them in this one app. It'll also estimate your blood-alcohol level and has a button to call a taxi. The interface is easy to use, since everything you want to do is on one screen. [iTunes link]

R U Drunk -- Can you pass these six sobriety tests? The six tests include standing on one leg, walking in a straight line, saying the alphabet backwards, a hand-eye coordination test, a "breathalizer" test, and a BAC calculator. The app is clearly labeled for entertainment purposes, but still, people are hating on it in the app store for controversial reasons. This was personally one of my favorites and I think it's worth the 2.99. [iTunes link]

DrinkBuddy - Another app that will keep track of your drinking. The benefit to this one is that you can also keep track of everyone else's drinking, so if you're feeling like reminiscing with your old frat buddies, here's the app for you. Also, unlike the other apps, this one comes pre-loaded with drinks so that you can spend less time keeping track and more time drinking. Sessions are saved in case you want to "wow" that special someone with your tolerance for alcohol; that always gets 'em. Chug chug chug chug!

Beer Pad -- For the beer aficionado, this app works as a beer journal to record your thoughts on the beers you drink. You can take notes, rate the beers you try, take a picture of the bottle for future reference and look up beers you've tried in the past. BeerPad will also remember everything you've said and use it as a reference guide for future. It's $4.99 but if beer is your game, this is one cool app. [iTunes link]

Wine Pad -- Same app as above, except for those who prefer wine. This app is also $4.99, but there's a free, (supposedly) buggy version called Pad Lite that worked fine for me. Wine Log is a similar application. [iTunes link]

myColorWave - Spending time with other people who have had too much to drink? Wave this free app around to see how fast they fall on the floor. Shake it or wave it, and the screen changes colors. Tap it or swipe it, the screen keeps changing colors. Tap or wave it faster, or jump up and down, and it changes color even faster! [iTunes link]

Wooo Button -- You know how whenever you have a little too much to drink, everything is "woooooo" worthy? Well, with this app you can press a simple button and it will yell an emphatic "wooooooo" for you. Is it faster and more productive to just yell "woooo" on your own? Sure. But it's free so what the heck. [iTunes link]

TipStar - When the night is over don't forget to tip your bartender! This is one of the few tipping apps that are still free on the app store, but it performs its basic function: Calculating your tip. [iTunes Store]

Mix your own drinks with some cocktail apps

Throwing your own party? Hosting an after party following your local PodCamp? There are a few cocktail mixing apps for the iPhone to make you the bartender of the night. People will be Twittering about your Mojito's for days to come. Or, the next time the bartender doesn't know your favorite drink, just bring it up and give them the recipe.

Cocktails (free) -- Ehm, if you speak German, this app will be perfect for you! Otherwise, you're probably going to have to pay at least $0.99 cents for a drink app. [iTunes link]

iBartender ($0.99) -- A decent bartending app, you can find all of the popular drinks and email them to others if that's your agenda. Can't decide what to make? Just shake the app and it will pick one for you. [iTunes link]

PLBartender ($0.99) - If you're cool with browsing for your drinks by name instead of by ingredient, this app will work. Like some of the other apps, you can edit recipes to your liking, but reviews at the iTunes app store recommend splurging on the Drinks app (below). [iTunes link]

Drinks ($3.99) -- This is a fantastic app to find drinks that you want to make. You can search by drink name or by the ingredients that you have (a big plus). You can even edit existing mixes to your liking and add your own. When you're done, you can review the drink and write notes about it. Great ratings in the app store, which I wholeheartedly agree with. [iTunes link]

Cocktails ($4.99) -- An OK app that doesn't require Internet access to use. No customization like the Drinks app and lacks more modern drinks (probably due to the fact that the user base can't add recipes). [iTunes link]

And for our underage friends:

Pour1Out - Underage and without a fake ID? Drink a virtual 40 with 40cozy.com's app. Tip it and the 40 pours out. Wrap it in a paper bag and wear some gold bling-bling; your friends will never know the difference. [iTunes link]

Or you could pay $2.99 for a fake glass of beer with iBeer, but that seems silly. There used to be a free app called iPint but along with (what feels like) every other free app on the app store, it's no longer available.

[Image credit: Glenn Harper [Attribution])

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

World's Simplest iPhone App
Apple's iPhone Directory is Really Real!
Apple Making a Directory for iPhone Apps?
iPhone. Europe. September.
Google Reader + iPhone = Awesome
8 Coolest iPhone Apps at iPhoneDevCamp
iZoho - Office Apps for your iPhone

I dreamed that he came home for me.


FGR = What Dreams May Come
U = Unbearably light

Accompanying Music: "I Never" - Rilo Kiley

I'm only a woman
Of flesh and bone
And I wept much
We all do
I thought I might die alone
But I had never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never met you
So baby be good to me
I've got nothing to give you, you see
Except everything, everything, everything, everything
All the good
And the bad
Cause I've been bad
I've lied, cheated, stolen, and been ungrateful for what I had
And I'm afraid habits rule my waking life
I'm scared
And I'm running in my sleep
For you
But all of the oceans and rivers and showers will wash it all away
And make me clean
For you
Cause I had never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never met you

*Explored: Reached #1 !!

The app is called Tweeple Twak and it lets you track your Twitter followers and keep an eye on trends. You can see when someone un-follows you and you have the option of sending a discrete message to that person to find out why they decided to do so. It may not win them back, but it certainly would provide some valuable insight into who's unfollwing you and why. 

In addition, Tweeple Twak provides some nice charts and graphs that help you keep an eye on follower trends. Did you get a big bump in followers one month? Now you'll be able to visualize when that spike happened. Lost a lot of folks one day? Maybe it was something you said. The service also promises other tools too, like individual reporting queues and email alert responders.

OK, now the bad news: the app is still in alpha. Private, you-can't-get-in-yet alpha. However, there is an emailing waiting list on the homepage, so at least you can be notified when it opens up.

Update: David Risley has his review up now, too. Yep, it's OK to blog about it. Josh tweeted it back on the 15th when I told him another site had discovered it.

WordPress blogs are getting increasingly social, giving readers the ability to bookmark your site to a number of services, get to know you better in more ways than just your comments section (and vice versa), and view your activity on a variety of social sites. We've compiled a list of more than 30 plugins that will let you make your WordPress blog more social.

This collection of plugins just begins to scratch the surface of what's available out there. As with all WordPress plugin lists, we highly suggest you do not install all of these because not only would it be redundant, it would also slow down the response times of your site.

Dedicated Site Plugins

Digg Digg - Will let you quickly add the Digg button to your posts with commands for left or right float, before and after content and a few other tweaks.

Digg This - This particular Digg plugin only adds the Digg button if it detects that your post has been submitted to the popular site, saving you the embarrassment of a lot of Digg badges showing "0″.

DiggZ-Et - Allows you to automatically insert Digg buttons into the pages and posts of your choice. Also lets you choose where the button will show up in the post, amongst other options.

Dugg Widget - Will place a widget in your sidebar that displays the last 10 posts from your blog that have made it on Digg.

FriendFeed Activity Widget - Share your FriendFeed activity with readers on your blog.

FriendFeed Comments WordPress Plugin - This plugin is used by Mashable and displays the number of times an articles has been marked as "Favorite" and will display the actual comments from the FriendFeed discussion on your site.

Stumble Reviews - Allows you to add the reviews that appear on StumbleUpon for a given page to be displayed on that page.

Twitter Updater - Send a Tweet to your Twitter account anytime you publish a new post to your blog, will automatically shrink it down via TinyURL.

WordPress Twitter Widget - Displays your Twitter feed in your sidebar and can turn "@username" and other info into links, while also displaying user avatars.

WP-Profilactic - Allows you to build a page around your Profilactic lifestreaming account so your blog readers can follow all of your links to nearly 200 possible social accounts.

Multi-site Plugins

Bookmark Me - Supports bookmarking to many international sites including German, Dutch, Lithuanian and more.

Bookmarkify - Adds support for over 50 social networking and bookmarking sites via squared off icons at the bottom of your posts.

I Love Social Bookmarking - Could there be a more appropriately named plugin for social bookmarking? As opposed to most of the other multi-submission plugins, this one puts the services into a drop down menu to save on load time.

iBegin Share - While it adds the usual bookmarking icons and ability to email a story, it also adds the ability to save the page as a PDF or Word DOC file.

obsocialbookmarker - Allows you to add the submission links for multiple social sites such as Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and more.

pingPressFM - Will communicate with ping.fm to update the social networks that it works with.

ShareThis - Easily adds the well-known green ShareThis icon to your blog, allowing people to quickly submit your articles to the most popular social sites or just email them to their friends.

Sociable - This plugin allows you to add a dizzying number of social submission icons to the bottom of your blog posts. If you activated all of them, your blog posts would certainly be colorful!

Social Bookmarking RELOADED - Adds numerous social bookmarking icons to your posts and/or pages, available in English or Italian.

Social Bookmarks - Gives you 50 social bookmarking submission icons to choose from including all of the major bookmarking services and several smaller ones.

Social Dropdown - Allows you to add a dropdown menu for numerous social bookmarking and voting sites such as Digg, Facebook, Google Bookmarks and more.

SociBook - Adds over 60 social bookmarking sites to your site by simply clicking on the name of each you want.

SocioFluid - While it does what many other plugins do by adding social bookmarking icons to the bottom of your posts, it keeps them small until the user passes their mouse over the icon and then enlarges. Is definitely one of the more visually interesting solutions out there.

WP PunchCard - Puts 40 social bookmarking sites into as small an area as possible to conserve space in your posts. Supports the usual major sites and others such as Yahoo My Web, Squidoo and more.

Social Networking Plugins

ComplexLife - Allows you to set up a page on your WordPress blog to track a large number of social services. Will also will track comments left on other blogs and forums.

Follow Me - Adds a sidebar hub for your social networking profiles such as Digg, Twitter, YouTube, Mixx and more.

LifeStream - Brings your activities on social networks such as Facebook, Digg, Twitter on to your blog and keeps a complete history as opposed to just a few weeks.

Meet Your Commenters - Takes the information your commenters leave and shows you their social networking profiles in your dashboard so you can add them and get to know them more.

Retaggr - Make a virtual business card for yourself that includes links to your most important social network profiles and include more information about yourself.

SezWho - Creates a social network out of your comments section by giving users a profile that follows them anywhere, also adds the ability to rate entries.

SocialBoaster - Turns your Digg, Twitter and Delicious activities into a blog post that will be shared on your blog.

Social Homes - Adds favicons to your sidebar for your various social networks so that your readers can easily find you on those social networks.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Wordpress Plugins Directory - Thanks, Wordpress!
Best of Mashable: WordPress
Wordpress 2.3 out on Monday; Now with Tags
7 Tools For Fighting Spam In WordPress
7 Tools For Blogging On Your Phone
30+ Tools For Working With Wordpress Posts
Automattic Launches Wordpress Support Network

On top of the list is Media Temple, Datagram, BlogSpot and Six Apart.

Yes you heard it, 8 of the top 100 blogs use Blogspot and 4 use Six Apart to host their blogs. It goes to show that while most (including me) would advise you set up your blog on your own hosting and with a platform like WordPress that you can actually grow a successful blog on a hosted platform like Blogspot.

Of course keep in mind that many of the blogs in the top 100 are in networks so they just go with who everyone else is with in their network and some of the services that the bigger blogs use are probably out of the range of what most bloggers can afford.

If you're looking for a blog host you might also want to check out ProBlogger Readers Blog Hosting Recommendations (in the comments of that post).

Share This

RSS Stream is a great plugin and this one just takes it a step further by using the SimplePie parser and offering more flexibility in the feeds it can use. Keep in mind that it requires Wordpress 2.5 minimum and PHP5 which may not be supported by your hosting provider.

You can grab it from his site here or at Wordpress.org over here.