by 
Col. Brian G. Miller
Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir
You’ve seen this scene in countless movies: a down-on-his-luck man (maybe a cop, private eye, reporter, boxer, crook, or just an everyman) and a beautiful, but untrustworthy, woman (femme fatale), having drinks (lots of drinks) in a smoky bar/hotel room/greasy spoon. Slatted light from the window blinds cuts through the cigarette smoke. Something bad is about to happen. And it’s all in glorious black and white.
Film noir is a major favorite category of movies for me. I say category because critics can’t agree if film noir is a genre or a style. But there is agreement what film noir is: crime movies from the 1940s and 1950s, with unique camera angles, stark lighting, lots of shadows, a bleak outlook on life, fedoras, dangerous dames, few happy endings, and lots of smoking and drinking.
Plenty of neat whiskey is tossed back in these films, but lots of exotic cocktails are lingered over as the heist/murder/double-cross is being planned as well. Want to have a Gimlet with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon? Maybe a Kitty Collins with Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster in The Killers? How about a Champagne Cocktail with Gloria Swanson and William Holden in Sunset Boulevard?
Thankfully, there’s a guide to help navigate our way through these mean streets: Eddie Muller’s Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir. It’s a volume you should consider adding to your whiskey bar bookshelf.
Eddie Muller, the author, is also known as the “Czar of Noir.” Muller is the host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies, founded the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit that rescues and restores films, and hosts Noir City Film Festivals around the country. Muller has written many books, including crime fiction, cinema histories, film biographies, and children’s books. Best of all, Muller began his working life as a bartender.
After a brief introduction to cinematic cocktail culture, there are three opening chapters to help get you started: The Well-Stocked Bar (How to assemble an at-home bar), Tools of the Trade (Selecting your barware and glassware), and How to Make a Cocktail (A basic guide to making a drink).
Then the real fun begins; 50 different cocktail recipes are paired with the inside dope on a classic film noir offering, all with plenty of black and white photos and colorful movie posters.
So loosen your tie, take off your fedora, sit back and enjoy the cocktails that dreams are made of!
“This book is designed to be a drinking companion for anyone taking a deep dive in the glamorous and gritty world of noir. It combines carefully curated classic cocktails with modern noir-inspired libations, plus a host of concoctions created by yours truly expressly for this book.”Eddie Muller, Author and “The Czar of Noir”
Here are my two favorite bourbon cocktail recipes from Noir Bar:
“This selection is from one of the best throwaway lines in all of film noir. When the bedridden wife of corrupt attorney Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern) complains about the larcenous company he keeps, the barrister replies, “Oh, there’s nothing so different about them. After all, crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavor.’”
The Noir Bar
The Left Hand
New York Mixologist Sam Ross
Paired with The Asphalt Jungle (1950) starring Sterling Hayden and Jean Hagen.
COURSE Cocktails
EQUIPMENT
- 1 Coupe Glass Chilled
- 1 Mixing Glass Strained
INGREDIENTS
- 1.5 oz Bourbon
- .75 oz Sweet vermouth
- .75 oz Campari
- 3-4 dashes Chocolate bitters
- 1 garnish Luxardo marachino cherry
INSTRUCTIONS
- NOTES: Like with a Negroni, it’s a personal call to have this one up or over. If you want to serve it on the rocks, I recommend a single large ice cube in a rocks glass. Make it in the mixing glass and strain. You can take or leave the cherry, depending on how much you’re channeling Dix Handley. He’d leave it for Doll.
“In a Lonely Place finds Humphrey Bogart playing Dixon Steele, an acerbic Hollywood screenwriter who’s at risk of losing his career to a surfeit of boozing and brawling.”
Noir Bar
A hat check girl Dixon brings back to his apartment and requests a Horse’s Neck (ginger ale with a twist of lemon), but Eddie Muller has added bourbon to the drink from his favorite movie.
Horse’s Neck
Paired with In a Lonely Place (1950) starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
COURSE Cocktails
EQUIPMENT
- 1 Collins Glass Build in glass with ice cubes
INGREDIENTS
- 2 oz. Bourbon
- 1 Ginger ale To fill
- 1 Garnish Lemon peel spiral
INSTRUCTIONS
- The twist is eveything. Always use a fresh lemon, bright and clean. Typically, you make a twist by paring a strip from the lemon top to bottom. For this, however, you need to carefully peel the lemon around its circumference, essentially creating not a twist, but a spiral.
