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Dax HaggardThe Tin Box Press

Cocktails, supper clubs, and a tin of pencil cards

Thirty good drinks that lost their audience, written back down.

I'm Dax Haggard, and I've tended bar at this supper club since 2014. This is my recipe box written out: the year each drink's menu price went quiet, the bottle I use now, and the one step that ruins it.

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For adults 21+. Please drink responsibly.

64 pages · 8 chapters · 30 drinks

Dax Haggard

Dax HaggardBartender at a northern Midwest supper club since 2014

The Supper Club Recipe Box

64-page PDF e-book · 8 chapters · 30 drinks

64Pages
8Chapters
30Drinks
$19Your book

The books

The Supper Club Recipe Box

The Supper Club Recipe Box

The books / 01

The Supper Club Recipe Box

The Forgotten-Cocktail Almanac of Old Menu Prices, Relish Trays, and Supper-Club Nights

A menu price is a clock. Read the number change across the decades and you can see what happened to a drink.

The job of this book is to put thirty old drinks back to work. Each one gets a house card: the drink, the year and price printed on the old supper-club menu, the bottle I use now, and the one step that ruins it. Eight chapters run from the gear that makes the recipes repeatable — a real jigger, a heavy tin, pasteurized eggs, cold vermouth, more ice than you think — through the cold pre-dinner half of the box, the whiskey-and-applejack middle, brandy and rum, dessert drinks, and the relish tray argument. It ends with a run of show for six people. Useful if you inherited a recipe box, tend bar, or host the same nine people every December.

Selected chapters

  1. The Tin Box Behind the Bar
  2. Ice, Jiggers, and the Honest Menu
  3. The Cold Open: Eight Drinks for the First Half Hour
  4. The Long Middle: Whiskey, Applejack, and Slow Ice
  5. Brandy, Rum, and the Sugar Rim
  6. The Relish Tray Is the Whole Argument
  7. Dessert Drinks and the Last Round
  8. Hosting the Night: A Run of Show

64 pages · PDF

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The recipe survived. The habit didn't.

Most of what retires a drink isn't quality. Nobody banned the Jack Rose and the applejack is still on the shelf. What went missing was the small social habit of asking for it out loud. Here is what that looks like from my side of the bar — and from yours.

  • You ask for a Jack Rose and watch the bartender look it up on a phone. The bottle is back there. Nobody has shaken one in two years.
  • Your grandmother's Grasshopper lives on an index card with no proportions, and you have never once made it the same way twice.
  • Your cocktail shelf has plenty of history and not one line telling you which bottle to buy now, or why a printed menu price from 1949 is worth reading.
  • You're hosting six people Saturday and the plan is one bag of ice, a borrowed shaker, and a relish tray of carrot sticks.
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Selected chapters

Where to start, depending on the night

The chapters follow the shape of a supper-club evening, from the cold first round to the last Grasshopper, but you don't have to read them that way. Three honest entry points, all from inside the book.

  1. Ice, Jiggers, and the Honest Menu

    Read this one first if you want the drinks to come out the same twice. The gear worth buying, the pantry short enough to fit on one shelf, and the four lines every price card carries.

  2. The Cold Open: Eight Drinks for the First Half Hour

    Start here if the first round is the part that scares you. Eight sharp, cold pre-dinner drinks — Jack Rose, Clover Club, Sloe Gin Fizz, Bronx — each with its year, its printed menu price, and why it belongs in the first half hour.

  3. Hosting the Night: A Run of Show

    Start here if six people are coming Saturday. Shopping, the ice plan, relish tray at six, first round at seven, hot plate at eight, Grasshopper at ten, and the last-round rule that ends the evening well.

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Look inside

See the work before you buy

Open a page and read it. The four samples are chapter openings, shown exactly as they sit in the book: the tin box behind the bar, the cold open, brandy and rum, and the dessert drinks. No signup and no email.

64 pages · 8 chapters · 30 drinks

Page 5 — The Tin Box Behind the Bar
Page 5 — The Tin Box Behind the Bar ↗
Page 16 — The Cold Open: Eight Drinks for the First Half Hour
Page 16 — The Cold Open: Eight Drinks for the First Half Hour ↗
Page 33 — Brandy, Rum, and the Sugar Rim
Page 33 — Brandy, Rum, and the Sugar Rim ↗
Page 49 — Dessert Drinks and the Last Round
Page 49 — Dessert Drinks and the Last Round ↗
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Dax Haggard

From the author

Dax Haggard, behind the bar since 2014

I came up through neighborhood bars and hotel lounges before I settled here, and I've been bartending more than twenty years. Most of what I know came from watching people decide whether to stay for one more. Reading a room, remembering what a regular drinks, getting a man to take his argument out the front door without a scene — that's the job. The drinks are how you do it politely.

The recipes came from Mr. Fritz, the head bartender before me, who kept them on pencil cards in a tin under the register and left the box to me. My mother Linda ordered Pink Squirrels because she found them pretty; my grandmother June had a Grasshopper after every anniversary dinner. I own two old Haussner's menus and I still keep the tin in the same place, dent and all. This book is the box written out plainly, so the next person can order one by name.

— Dax Haggard

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This is for you if

Who I wrote this for

This is for you if

  • You keep a jigger, a fine strainer, and a channel knife where you can reach them, and you'd rather replace a tool than polish it.
  • You want the drink and the paper trail: the year, the printed menu price, and the bottle that makes it taste right now.
  • You host the same people every year and would like the evening to have a shape instead of a pile of bottles.
  • You're fine with pasteurized eggs in a Clover Club and you keep your vermouth in the refrigerator.

What this book will not do

  • It is not a complete cocktail encyclopedia. It holds thirty drinks, not three hundred.
  • It is a PDF to read and print. There is no video course and no printed copy.
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What you get

The complete offer

The Supper Club Recipe Box is one PDF e-book: 64 pages, eight chapters. Thirty drinks with their printed years and menu prices, the bottle I use now, and the step that ruins each one — plus the gear list, the relish tray pairings, and a timed run of show for six people.

The Supper Club Recipe Box

Your order

The Supper Club Recipe Box

$19

64-page PDF e-book · 8 chapters · 30 drinks

$19 USD · 7-day money-back guarantee

For adults 21+. Please drink responsibly.

64 pages · 8 chapters · 30 drinks

  • The Supper Club Recipe Box · 64 pages · PDF
Get the recipe box $19

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What you can work toward

AI-generated illustrations of potential readers.

You're hosting six and want a plan, not a vibe

Chapter eight is a full run of show: the shopping, the ice plan, the relish tray at six, the first round at seven, the hot plate at eight, the Grasshopper at ten. One evening laid out in order, so you're pouring instead of hunting for a shaker.

AI-generated illustrations of potential readers.

You inherited a recipe box and half of it is illegible

The card system gives you four lines to fill in — the drink, the year and printed price, the bottle you use now, and the step that ruins it — so a pencil scribble becomes something you can actually make on a Tuesday.

AI-generated illustrations of potential readers.

You tend bar and the old requests keep coming

Thirty drinks with proportions, modern bottle notes, and what the Friday Rusty Nail looked like from my side of the bar. Enough to say yes when somebody asks for a Seelbach and mean it.

AI-generated illustrations of potential readers.

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Questions

I've never made a Jack Rose. Is this too advanced?

No, but you need a real jigger. The second chapter assumes you can squeeze a lime and chill a glass, then sets the gear and the pantry in plain terms. Each card gives the drink, the year and printed price, the bottle I use now, and the one step that ruins it — so you're not guessing at proportion.

What's actually in the book?

The Supper Club Recipe Box is 64 pages in eight chapters. It opens with the tin box coming out from under the register, covers the gear and the card system, then runs the drinks in the order a night moves: eight cold openers, eight whiskey and applejack, seven brandy and rum, seven dessert drinks.

What format do I get?

The Supper Club Recipe Box is a PDF e-book, 64 pages in eight chapters. That's the format available for it here, and you can open a sample page before you decide.

Why pay for the book when the videos are free?

A video can show one drink being made. It can't hand you thirty cards with the year, the printed price, the bottle note, and the step that ruins each one — or the gear list and the run of show that turn a Saturday into an order. The method isn't complicated; the supply list, the ice plan, and the order of the evening are what you're buying.

Are these modern recipes or the old ones?

The old ones, adjusted for what's actually on the shelf. Each card keeps the year and printed menu price it came from and tells you the bottle I use now — real sloe gin for the fizz, vermouth kept cold, pasteurized eggs wherever an egg shows up.

Do any of the drinks use raw egg?

Two kinds do: egg-white cocktails and the Tom and Jerry batter, which I mix a month ahead. I use pasteurized eggs for both, and the cards say so where it matters.

Can I host this without a full bar?

Chapter eight is built for six people — a shopping list that feeds eight, an ice plan, the relish tray at six, the first round at seven, the hot plate at eight. You're buying bottles for a night, not building a back bar.

Can I read a page before I buy?

Yes. Open a sample page and it comes up directly: four chapter openings from the book. No signup, no email.

Is there a money-back guarantee?

Yes. Every order has a 7-day money-back guarantee. To ask for a refund, just reply to the purchase email you got from Hotmart. A real person answers. The book is a PDF download; no printed copy is included.

Get the recipe box $19

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Order it by name

Thirty drinks, one dented tin, and the price cards that make them repeatable. If you've ever asked for a drink nobody has made in years, you already know why this exists.

Get the recipe box $19

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