Gonna keep this short. The Academy Awards were Sunday, which leads to today’s question: Has there been an iconic drink that you’ve been spurred on to drink because it figured in some way in a movie or TV show? For example, did you have to try a martini after watching any of the James Bond films, as pictured above?
I tried a White Russian after seeing “The Big Lebowski” in college. Reader, I could not have been more disappointed.
He’s not wrong, but White Russians still suck.
Let us know your cinema booze experience in the comments.
There was never anything I saw on TV or a movie that spurred me to try. I just drank whatever I could get my hands on.
I had a roommate who loved white Russians, and one time we mixed up a huge bucket with the ingredients and spent the night drinking it. It was booze, so I didn’t care.
…someone suggested trying to go drink for drink with the characters in whithnail & I when I was a student…I…wouldn’t advise it?
…also…you’d more or less have to devise some system where it was just a set amount of whatever you might be drinking or the project of finding out all the sorts of drinks you’d need to have ready would add up both time & money wise
…also…despite a fantastic performance as a more-or-less permanently sozzled individual richard e grant is (& was at the time) actually teetotal apparently?
Strangely enough, Grant also played an irrepressible drunk/alcoholic in the grossly underappreciated “Can You Ever Forgive Me.” The bar that is like a second home is still around (Julius, in the West Village.)
For our 2017 Oscar party I whipped up a batch (batches) of the Moonlight Cocktail
I figured “Moonlight” was going to sweep everything and it did, more or less, ultimately. That was the year that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway accidentally announced “La La Land” as Best Picture, and even though the winners are supposedly kept secret no one believed that “La La Land” could really have been Best Picture and sure enough…
I should add two things, but of course I missed the editing window:
1. Difford’s is a great online resource for drinx. And I say this as someone who has the 1953 (10th printing) edition of the Old Mr. Boston Bartending Guide, which was first published in 1935. You can imagine how I treasure it.
2. Créme de violette is, surprisingly, more widely available and much cheaper than you would expect.
Old fashioned.
Damn Mad Men.
I will say this about “Mad Men”:
In their fetishistic desire to get everything just right, the characters drink martinis the way they used to be served, in small-ish champagne glasses (coupes). In the modern era, where martini glasses are supposed to be V-shaped and 4 inches wide at the top, it’s inconceivable that anyone could survive a three-martini lunch. But back in those days you could. If you were a good-sized man and a regular drinker and ate a heavy lunch, three circa-1962 martinis would have left you relatively sober, although I would imagine very sleepy. But that’s where the nicotine from your three-pack-a-day cigarette habit would kick in to keep you perky.
I realized I knew nothing about James Bond’s Martini except it was shaken not stirred.
So I just looked it up and it’s not as bad as I feared. 3 Oz gin, 1 oz. vodka, 1/2 oz. Lillet which I gather is sort of like vermouth and a lemon peel.
That sounds fine, although I don’t know if it’s worth buying a whole bottle of Lillet.
Thanks for filling in. You’re an excellent barkeep.
I don’t think there’s anything I specifically drank because it was in a movie or tv. @manchucandidate mentioned Mad Men and that did renew my interest in cocktails in general. I like the taste of White Russians but they are too filling. I can only drink one. I prefer Black Russians.
Exactly. Cut to the chase and don’t waste calories on a cream filler.
I have the exact set of lowballs that the characters (most often Inspector Thomas Brackenreid) use in Murdoch Mysteries so – for the few months it took me to binge watch it – I found it relaxing to light a candle and live like it was pre-20th century while sipping whisky from the same glass I’d see on the show before falling asleep. Lemmy & RIP would curse me out if they knew how much whisky I wasted each night due to the “before falling asleep” bit.
Did you make it to the episode where they investigate nefarious doings at a whisky distillery? That was a good one.
I am all caught up save for the latest season that recently began.
Are you referring to Churchill & his sword fight?
No, this one involved a family-run distillery and a difference of opinion in what the distillery should be producing going forward. Julia gets to try out some Freudian talk therapy on one of the family members. I still can’t get over that frigging house and the fact that they have a roomba (in 1907) and I don’t.
There’s another good one much earlier on where Margaret joins a temperance league and the Brackenreids host a very special surprise guest.
@MatthewCrawley, did you use to write the TV schedules in the newspaper? Because they read exactly like that last graf. Fantastic.
Sadly, no, but I’ve always thought I’d be good at something like that. Apparently if are just starting or just ending a career at a newspaper you are assigned to the obit desk. To me, that should be one of the most highly prized positions at any paper, especially one where you can go on and on, like the NYTimes.