I’ve always enjoyed creating New Year’s resolutions, and this year the choice was easy: blog more! When I started this site in 2018, it was important to me not to stress myself out by creating unsustainable expectations for how much content I was going to produce. I really do want to write, though, and it has become increasingly clear to me that one of my biggest problems is that I’m out of practice. While pondering this situation the other day, I found myself staring at this chalkboard in my dining room:
If you’re standing in my house, odds are you know that I love cocktails and that I don’t need much prompting to offer you one. This board, which I update once a month or so, is an invitation to ask me to do so and an order suggestion based on the spirits, syrups, and juices we have on hand. Currently it features a Corn ‘n Oil recipe from the Detroit cocktail bar Standby published by Imbibe Magazine a few years ago. This drink is the best application I’ve found for the Maggie’s Farm Falernum Liquor (made by a distillery located in my old stomping grounds of Pittsburgh) my loving wife got me for my birthday last year and a fine use for the bottle of Cruzan Black Strap Rum I always seem to have in my liquor cabinet as well. The clove notes in the falernum also create a bridge to the recently expired holiday season, while the tropical flavors are just the ticket for a brief respite from the cold of early January in upstate New York.
Suddenly it hit me: what if I picked a movie to go with this drink? And then came up with additional pairings and posted them monthly throughout the rest of the year? I was fond of the TBS television series Dinner & a Movie as a youngster and have always thought that as a person who spends most of my waking moments thinking about either food or film, there surely must be a way I could run with this basic concept. I’ve never had any luck coming up with anything before now, but maybe this was it? After all, I’m basically doing this all the time anyway, I just need to start showing my work.
So that’s the gimmick! Each month, I will highlight a cocktail and a film on this blog that I think go well together. Although in the future the inspiration for these posts could begin with cinema or spirits, I decided to stick with what was already on the board for the first installment. And so I bring you a drink, Standby’s Corn ‘n Oil:
1 oz. Dark Rum (Plantation Original Dark)
1 1/2 oz. Falernum (Maggie’s Farm)
3/4 oz. Lime Juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters
1 oz. Black Strap Rum (Cruzan)
Shake dark rum, falernum, and lime juice with ice until chilled and strain into a Collins glass. Add crushed ice, then float the black strap rum and bitters over the top to combine. Standby and Imbibe recommend stirring to combine before drinking, and I don’t disagree, but make sure you take a second to admire it first!
And a movie, Blake Edwards’s The Tamarind Seed:
Pictured here is the DVD I bought on Amazon. The film is also available on Blu-ray and can currently be streamed via Amazon Prime for a rental fee and the Roku Channel for free. The main reason I selected it is because it was shot on location in Barbados, birthplace of falernum. This is also one of the reasons I prefer to use Plantation Original Dark, since it hails from the same place. It’s also lighter in color than many dark rums, and although master distiller at R.L. Seale (creator of John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum, the most well-known version of the spirit) Richard Seale disputes the notion that the Corn ‘n Oil is named after its appearance (he believes it’s actually a biblical reference), the striking contrast between the dark and light hues in Standby’s rendition of the drink is one of my favorite things about it. The visual style of The Tamarind Seed echoes this in a red/blue two-color motif which first appears in the titles designed by James Bond veteran Maurice Binder and recurs throughout the film:
More importantly, this is a thoroughly grown-up film to enjoy with your adult beverage. Despite the fact that it’s a Cold War drama, characters are defined as “good” or “bad” based on how they treat each other and the world (I submit that the sign below which appears at around the halfway mark is a pivotal moment in the film) rather than which side they’re on, and their uncommonly intelligent dialogue reflects an awareness of the fact that this is a minority viewpoint.
The Tamarind Seed is quite lovely to look at, a few baffling (to this child of the ’90s) aesthetic choices aside:
I’m particularly fond of the use of mirrors and windows to create baroque compositions like this one:
And to foreshadow future plot developments:
Which, why yes, that *is* Omar Sharif in a bright yellow robe!
He dons it again near the end of the film in one of my favorite sequences, which builds tension through John Barry’s effective score, deep-focus photography:
And more reflections:
The supporting cast is terrific, especially Anthony Quayle, and it can even be quite funny at times (“Has it ever occurred to you that I might be slightly frustrated myself?” says Julie Andrews after almost two hours of refusing to go to bed with Sharif). Throw in a few breathtaking Bajan sunsets:
And you have the perfect companion to a tropical libation, not to mention a film that I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about.
Cheers!
All original photographs in this post are by Marion Penning, aka my loving wife. Thanks, Mep! Future entries in this series will be findable here as soon as they exist.
The Prodigal Cinephile 