WORTH A SHOT
Kashmira Gander takes a journey through Hollywood’s love affair with cocktails, and rounds up a few classics to drink while watching the Oscars this weekend
From the flaming rum punch in the 1940s classic It’s a Wonderful Life to Carrie Bradshaw’s cosmopolitan in the Sex in the City series and movies, hard booze and films go quite nicely together. And it was while watching the 2007 thriller Zodiac, as Jake Gyllenhaal’s character discovers the Aqua Velva cocktail thanks to Robert Downey Jr’s maverick crime reporter, that writer Will Francis and writer and illustrator Stacey Marsh thought up the idea for the book Cocktails of the Movies. “The scene felt quite central to the film and their relationship and we thought that it’d be great if there was a book which brought those boozebased moments together,” he tells The Independent. “We looked online and there wasn’t one. So we set about finding great scenes, rich characters and iconic actors where the cocktail was significant.”
Over the course of two years of watching movies and drinking cocktails (poor guys!) the pair pieced the book together. And managed to get married, too. “It was hard and we were planning our wedding at that time. I’m happy to report we’re still happily married and developing more books,” jokes Francis. “We started out grabbing everything we could find from famous, already documented appearances to our own discoveries by painstakingly rushing through hundreds of movies. When we started to narrow it down we were conscious of making it evenly spread over the last ten decades, between men and women, young and old. And there were many duplicates, mostly Martinis which appear in lots of films.”
Cocktails, says Francis, seem to have the power to transport us to a specific time and place: even if it’s somewhere fictional that we’ve only ever been via the cinema or sofa. “Firstly, the fact that bars where a house cocktail costs £20 are full every night shows what a tiny glass of intense flavour, aroma and visual play does to people,” he argues. “A well made drink feels rare and special, away from our everyday lives. Secondly there’s the romance around specific drinks. Who doesn’t feel suave sipping an Old Fashioned. Or in summer holiday mode slurping a Mai Tai.”
And after testing so many cocktails, the duo know a thing or two about making a decent drink. What are their top tips? “Stick with inexpensive classic gear,” says Francis: “A Boston shaker, spoon and strainer. Buy good big cubes of supermarket ice so you can use lots of it. Follow recipes but trust your own tastebuds. Customise again and again to find what you like. Don’t underestimate the power of citrus zest, bitters and cooking ingredients around the house to transform a simple drink into something special.”
He goes on: “Make your own sugar syrup for easy sweetness precision in drinks with equal parts sugar and water, boiled, cooled, stored in an empty bottle rinsed with vodka. Always use fresh citrus juice, you’ll need a slice or zest for garnish anyway. And if you have friends over for cocktails big-batch serves are your friend. Make jugs of your cocktail to the same proportions with lots of ice and garnish. They look great and are fun to serve.”
Champagne Cup The Grand Budapest Hotel • 2014 M. Gustave / Ralph Fiennes
25 ml brandy 12.5 ml orange liqueur 1 tsp Maraschino cherry syrup champagne
Stir the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a champagne saucer. Top up with champagne and
drop a Maraschino cherry in the glass.
Champagne or claret ‘cups’ appear in the earliest cocktail books and were clearly popular, though the origin of the cup style of drink is unknown. In Jerry Thomas’s 1862 book How to Mix Drinks, the author describes the drink as excellent, and suggests it ought to be called the ‘nectar of the Czar’ due to its popularity in Russia ‘amongst the aristocracy of the Muscovite empire’. His recipe is similar to the modern one, though with more vegetation, some sherry and what he describes as ‘ratafia of raspberries’ – an old term for fruit steeped with sugar in alcohol. Today’s best equivalent would be the syrup of Maraschino cherries, or a liqueur such as Chambord.
After an epic journey conquering mountains, prisons, forests and vicious criminals, M. Gustave has finally proved his innocence, and can once again return to the Grand Budapest Hotel. He loves it dearly, and it loves him back. As he relaxes in the bar, sipping a Champagne Cup with the rich, blonde, older ladies of whom he is so fond, he can now reflect on his triumph against all odds. Zero will take over his concierge duties and in time inherit his mentor’s fortune, but even in middle age his protégé can never leave this monumental relic of a bygone age.
Flaming Rum Punch It’s a Wonderful Life • 1946 Clarence the Angel / Henry Travers
100 g cloves 6 oranges ½ bottle aged rum ½ bottle cognac 130g sugar 2 pinches cinnamon
2 pinches ground nutmeg 500 ml warm apple cider 400 ml hot water 300 ml orange juice 150 ml lemon juice
Stick the cloves in the oranges and bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes, until they soften. Place in a punchbowl and pour over the rum and cognac, followed by the sugar. Light the rum and, once alight, sprinkle over the spices. After around 20 seconds pour in the cider, water and juices slowly. As you do so, the flame will extinguish. Ladle into toddy glasses and garnish with a light sprinkle of ground nutmeg.
Punches are as ancient as the spirits with which we make them. First seen in the West in the early 17th century, it is thought that the drink was brought by early commercial sailors to Britain from India. The name is derived from the Sanskrit word for five (panch), indicating the original number of ingredients: spirits, water, lemon juice, sugar and spice. Initially, Western punches contained wine or brandy, but as Caribbean rum became available it grew into the most popular base spirit. Here we use equal parts of cognac and rum, partly to hark back to those early days of punch served in dank taverns and heated by plunging a hot poker into the drink, but chiefly due to the sensationally fiery depth of flavour when the drink is served warm.
George is starting to believe that his new friend Clarence might just be the guardian angel he claims to be, sent from heaven to save him from suicide. Having dried off from their plunge into the freezing river, they walk through the Bedford Falls that could have been, the one with no George Bailey, and dominated by the ruthless Mr Potter. In this alternate universe they enter Martini’s bar to see it’s a smoky, boozy den called Nick’s. Clarence, being the 292-year-old angel he is, orders what he knows – a Flaming Rum Punch, or maybe a mulled wine. Either would be perfect to warm their frozen selves, but all his talk of wings and angels sees them being thrown face-first back into the bitter snow.
Manhattan Some Like it Hot • 1959 Sugar Kane Kowalczyk / Marilyn Monroe
50 ml bourbon or rye whiskey 25 ml sweet vermouth 2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir the ingredients in a stirring or mixing glass with ice for about 30 seconds, then strain into a chilled Martini glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry with a stalk (or skewer it). Traditionally made with rye whiskey, the Manhattan is often served with bourbon today. Either works well in its own way and rye has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. There are three key variations on the mix, and you will likely be asked for your preference when ordering a Manhattan at a reputable bar: dry, perfect or sweet. Dry Manhattans are made with dry vermouth, Perfect Manhattans with half dry, half sweet vermouth and Sweet Manhattan is the recipe used here due to its popularity and palatability. For extra sweetness you can add a spoon of syrup from the jar of Maraschino cherries.
Though its true origins are unknown, the Manhattan became fashionable in the 1880s and went on to be a truly essential cocktail, variations on which could make up an entire mixologist’s menu.
Joe and Jerry are trying desperately not to attract attention. They’ve landed a gig in an all-girl band and are playing their female roles successfully so far. On the overnight train, Jerry’s bunked up with a livewire in blonde bombshell Sugar Kane, and before long she’s found half a bottle of bourbon. Before they can enjoy a quiet drink in their bunk together, another band member, Dolores, finds them. Sugar Kane suggests Manhattans and sends her off to get vermouth and the ‘cocktail shaker’ – a hot water bottle. Before long the whole giddy troupe is downing the sweet version of this enduring classic, but can Joe and Jerry make it through the night without blowing their cover?
Sazerac Live and Let Die • 1973 James Bond / Roger Moore
25 ml absinthe 50 ml rye whiskey 12.5 ml sugar syrup
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Rinse a chilled Old-Fashioned glass with absinthe, fill it with crushed ice and put it in the fridge to cool further. Stir the other ingredients with ice and strain into your (emptied) ice-chilled glass. Twist a piece of lemon zest over the drink and drop it in. The Sazerac is the drink most closely associated with New Orleans. Its name comes from a French cognac, Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils, which Aaron Bird started importing to the city in around 1850.
Bird opened the Sazerac Coffee House and combined the cognac with locally made Peychaud’s bitters. Around 1870, cognac became scarce due to the epidemic of phylloxera, a parasite from America that had accidentally been imported and decimated European vineyards. As a result rye whiskey was used instead. It remains the most popular base spirit. In 2008 the cocktail was proclaimed the official drink of the Big Easy.
Bond is in New Orleans to track down the killer of a number of British MI6 agents. He’s on the trail of Caribbean dictator Kananga with CIA agent Felix. The pair go to Fillet of Soul for some local seafood and, of course, the local tipple, Sazeracs. Unfortunately, it transpires that the place is owned by local gangster Mr Big. Bond is left alone at the table for a moment and it descends into the floor just before the drinks arrive, offering him an impromptu meeting with the boss and his unexpected alter ego.
Mississippi Punch Breakfast at Tiffany’s • 1961 Holly Golightly / Audrey Hepburn
50 ml cognac 25 ml bourbon 12.5 ml lemon juice
12.5 ml sugar syrup 25 ml dark rum
Shake all the ingredients except the rum with crushed ice and pour into a Collins glass, unstrained. Top the glass with more crushed ice, gently pour over the rum and garnish with an orange slice and a cherry.
This highly alcoholic party drink appears in Thomas’s How to Mix Drinks, here a single-serving version. However, it can also be made in a punchbowl to the same proportions, with fruit such as oranges and berries added for a more “punchy” taste and appearance. Some modern recipes leave out the rum, and if you do that and replace the cognac with pineapple juice, you have a Florida Punch.
The party is in full swing and the booze is flowing like a mountain river. Holly Golightly has thrown another of her infamous soirées, attracting friends and acquaintances from New York’s wealthy socialite scene. As the cat with no name watches with bemusement from atop the furniture, the gathering descends into drunken debauchery, much to the chagrin of Mr Yunioshi upstairs. Just as he considers calling the police, more bourbon arrives, meaning more Mississippi Punch!
Dirty Martini
Iron Man 2 • 2010 Natalie Rushman (Natasha Romanoff) / Scarlett Johansson
50 ml gin 12.5 ml dry vermouth 6 ml olive brine
Shake all the ingredients with ice and fine strain into a chilled Martini glass. Garnish with a thin lemon twist. No-one knows who first spilled brine from the olive jar into their Martini and christened the mistake a Dirty Martini.
There are rumours of Russian drinkers adding brine to their vodka as a hangover cure, and many attribute the cocktail to the unusual tastes of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was known among his friends for creating challenging concoctions at his home bar. Indeed, if the Dirty Martini is made badly it can be the worst drink imaginable, particularly if you don’t take care to ensure that the olive juice you use is in fact brine, and not oil or a flavoured mix of the two.
Fresh from narrowly surviving an impromptu public rendezvous with Ivan Vanko in Monaco, Tony Stark could be having his last birthday. With the palladium spreading from the ARC reactor in his chest and making his blood toxic, he’s starting to feel vulnerable. As he prepares for the party, his stunning new assistant shakes him a drink to start the night, a Martini served straight up and dirty. She seductively asks Tony if it’s dirty enough for him, but mortality is heavy on his mind. How will he spend what he thinks might be his last birthday? Dancing in his Iron Man suit, of course.
Old Fashioned Crazy Stupid Love • 2011 Jacob Palmer / Ryan Gosling
50 ml bourbon 2 dashes Angostura bitters 12.5 ml sugar syrup
Fill an Old-Fashioned glass with ice, pour in the ingredients and stir for at least one minute to allow the mix to cool and dilute properly. If the ice has reduced down slightly, top the glass up with ice. Peel some zest off an orange and fold lengthways over the glass to express the oils. Twist and drop in the glass.
The Old Fashioned first appears in How to Mix Drinks. Here it is listed as a “Whiskey Cocktail” and the ingredients are the same, except for the non-specific mention of “whiskey” rather than a named variant such as bourbon or rye, and it is served in a wine glass. Nowadays, of course, this “vintage cocktail” is served in the thick-bottomed tumblers which took on the drink’s name. For a time Old Fashioneds were made with muddled orange, lemon and cherry, and topped with soda water. Thankfully, the Old Fashioned is now usually served in its classic form.
Cal’s life has crumbled, his marriage has fallen apart and he’s just a lonely man with terrible dress sense to boot. Seemingly out of the blue lands his potential saviour, Jacob, the most suave and quietly sexy guy in all of Los Angeles. Here’s a man who effortlessly seduces a different woman every night with his cat-like coolness, bottomless well of confidence and, in his hand, a drink that is like a baton passed through the ages between men of sophistication and urbane allure: the Old Fashioned.