Menu Builder & Event Menus

Transform your recipe collection into elegant cocktail menus for dinner parties, seasonal gatherings, and home tastings.

When hosting friends or family, presenting a focused list of featured drinks simplifies ordering and makes entertaining feel intentional. Speakeasy lets you compose and customize a menu in minutes, checked against what you actually have on hand.

Creating an Event Menu

Starting a new cocktail menu is simple:

  1. Navigate to the Menu Builder view from the application drawer or via Saved Event Menus in Settings.
  2. Select Create Menu and assign a festive title (such as Autumn Tasting Night or Rooftop Soirée).

Menus are part of your Speakeasy account, so you need to be signed in to build them. Signed out, the Menu Builder asks you to sign in first.

Menu Builder cocktail picker with categories and a running selection
Browse cocktails by category and build your running selection.

Selecting Cocktails

Curate a lineup suited to your evening:

  • Browse Your Catalog: Pick from classic staples or your own signature custom riffs.
  • Add From Any Drink: While looking at a cocktail, open its More actions menu and choose Add to Menu. With one saved menu the drink goes straight on; with several, you choose which. The action only appears once you have a menu.
  • Check Backbar Feasibility: Speakeasy lets you easily add all recipes that are ready to make with your current stock.
  • Print Guest Menu: Print clean physical menus directly from the menu action bar or browser print preview. See Printing Menus below.
  • Share With Guests: Create a link and QR code so guests can browse the menu on their own phones. See Hosting with Guests.
Saved event menu showing glassware needed and an ingredient checklist
A saved menu with its glassware count and combined ingredient checklist.

Glassware and Ingredients

As you add drinks, Speakeasy automatically tallies the required glassware and ingredients. This makes it easy to see what you need to stock up on for your event.

Click on Need to Buy to see a only the ingredients you don't have on hand.

Printing Menus

Print menus allow guests to browse your menu's drink selections. Speakeasy generates a paper-formatted version of your menu directly from your saved event menu.

How to Print

  1. Navigate to Menu Builder and select your saved event menu.
  2. Select Print Guest Menu from the action bar at the top of the menu details.
  3. A dedicated print window opens. Your browser's print dialog will appear, or you can trigger it with Cmd+P (Mac) or Ctrl+P (Windows).
  4. Choose your physical printer, or select Save as PDF to generate a digital file.

Design and Formatting

  • Midnight Navy and Gold theme: Printed menus carry the app's Art Deco card design, complete with the Speakeasy brand header, menu title, drink names, and glassware illustrations.
  • Flavor summaries: Each cocktail entry lists its glassware alongside a concise summary of up to four key ingredients so guests understand the flavor profile at a glance.
  • Host details excluded: Internal host information, such as the backbar inventory tally, glassware counts, and shopping checklists, is omitted from the printout.

Page Capacity and Print Settings

  • Recommended limit: The two-column layout fits up to 10 to 12 cocktails cleanly on a single standard Letter or A4 page. Speakeasy prompts with a confirmation notice if your menu contains more than 10 cocktails to let you know it may run onto a second page.
  • Background graphics: Speakeasy enforces exact color rendering in CSS, but certain browsers require enabling the Background graphics option in their print dialog to print dark backgrounds.
  • Margins: Page margins are preset to 0.5 inches. Keep browser margins set to Default for proper alignment.