Booze & Movies: Eddie Muller and André Darlington
Booze and movies, what could go wrong?
Eddie Muller, Eddie Muller’s Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir (Turner Classic Movies, 2023)
André Darlington, Forbidden Cocktails: Libations Inspired by the World of Pre-Code Hollywood (Turner Classic Movies, 2024)
Christmas brought a library of books for consideration here. We have already considered André Darlington’s Booze & Vinyl Country: 100+ Spirited Music-and-Drink Pairings (Running Press, 2025) in these electrons. Darlington has made a cottage industry of matching booze with music: Booze & Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks (Running Press, 2018), Booze & Vinyl Vol. 2: 70 More Albums + 140 New Recipes (Running Press, 2022) (both cowritten with his sister, Tenaya Darlington), and A Booze & Vinyl Christmas: Merry Music-and-Drink Pairings to Celebrate the Season (Running Press, 2023).
Two recent books from Turner Classic Movies address the best of black & white cinema: film noir and pre-code Hollywood. TCM’s own house critic, Eddie Muller, takes on the best of 1940s through 1960s film noir and tipples inspired by the genre. The aforementioned Darlington ops for earlier films, those made between 1930 and 1934, a period of film history where the American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (popularly known as the Hays Code) in 1934. Although the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, its oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 19341.
Booze may pair better with cinema than with music. Both books introduce newly inspired drinks and return to some old standbys. The movies directly inspired many of the drinks, while providing historical significance to the tried and true. It is not just drinks highlighted. Both books provide movie lists to peruse and enjoy, with or without alcohol. The films are almost only in black and white, with the pre-code movies just postdating the silent film era. Both are fun reads from which the reader can learn much.
To, Contributors. “US Cinema before the Motion Picture Production Code Introduction.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., October 8, 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood.