The Literary Cellar: Booze and Vinyl

Put some records on while I pour...

Get the turntable and your home bar ready… we’re looking at a different form of art and beverage pairing with Booze and Vinyl!

I was gifted this book by a sommelier friend who knows that my husband and I are avid vinyl record collectors. It’s proven to be an enlightening and tasty way to supplement our record habits, and we love assembling a cocktail when the mood for a specific record strikes!

Booze and Vinyl (2018), pictured with a Whiskey Smash. André and Tenaya Darlington’s record pairing? The Ramones. (Photo Credit: Jason Lee Menard)

Originally published in 2018, Booze and Vinyl is the cocktail and album pairing project from siblings André and Tenaya Darlington. The brother and sister team previously published TCM’s Movie Night Menus and The New Cocktail Hour together, but it was Booze and Vinyl that catapulted the Darlington siblings into a larger conversation about pairing drinks with music. 

The premise is simple, but effective: 70 great albums from the 1950s through the 2000s, and each album gets two cocktail pairings (A Side and B Side). There’s an album for every mood and many different styles of music, from U2’s The Joshua Tree (one of the best albums ever written, IMHO) to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (something that I would spin frequently when I was on the floor of a wine bar that only played vinyls) to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (another personal favorite), this is a fundamental book for anyone starting to get into record collecting as much as the burgeoning home bartender.

Cocktail newbies and aficionados alike will get a lot out of the recipes, too. There’s a “Bar Code” section of the book at the end that serves as a Home Bar 101 for those just learning the ins and outs of glassware and homemade grenadine. There are classic cocktail recipes with iconic record pairings (my personal favorite is a Tequila Sunrise with Side A of The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers). There are modern classic cocktails from some of America’s best bartenders (check out the Old Cuban, paired with - what else - the B Side of Buena Vista Social Club). There are time- and ingredient-heavy cocktails, and there are foolproof beverage options (Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot gets a Fishbowl for Side A, while Side B is best enjoyed with bourbon in a Dixie cup). 

With the author’s liner notes on the albums and cocktails, along with some food recipes sprinkled throughout the book, Booze and Vinyl is a great handbook to keep conveniently placed near the record station. It’s a book I will continue to reference throughout my beverage study, and something that my husband and I can look through together to find inspiration for our next listening session.