Book Review: Noir Bar

By Richard Thomas

I’m often surprised when trends and fads don’t carry more people down what should be obvious path. For example, many say that the TV show Madmen helped drive the modern cocktail renaissance. Keeping that in mind, one wonders why this pairing didn’t spark more interest in film noir. True, the TV show and film noir don’t quite overlap: Madmen opens in 1960, while the golden age of film noir ran from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. But film noir is intimately wrapped around cocktail culture, retains all its glamor, and is just sitting there and waiting to become the inspiration of all manner of things (especially in the setting of a faux speakeasy serving up Prohibition-era classics!).

One fellow who gets this connection is Eddie Muller, host of TCM’s Noir Alley, and he shows it in his recent cocktail book, Noir Bar. In summary, Muller’s latest work opens with the elements needed to construct a proper cocktail bar at home, while the bulk of the book is spent pairing old school film noir with old school cocktails.

After thumbing through the book, I decided to set it a challenge of sorts. This is a whiskey website, so I needed to zero in on whiskey cocktails. So, I went looking for a movie I hadn’t seen that was paired with a whiskey cocktail, then follow the advice: whip up a beaker of that cocktail, settle in, and enjoy an evening with a classic movie. Meeting that challenge was pretty easy, as it turns out, which underlines the expanse and depth of the film and cocktail coverage. I got John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle paired with The Left Hand. I found the commentary on the film sharp, and the insight into the cocktail useful in putting my own home bar twist on it.

With that, I was sold. I know two guys who are both very into drinks and very into old movies, and I’ve found my Christmas present for both of them (assuming either reads this review).