I was beside myself with excitement when I saw that my fave food mag Delicious Magazine has a new column called Kay & Fred’s Movie Night. Kay Plunkett-Hogge and her partner Fred will be selecting a movie and suggesting a meal to have alongside it each month. Whoopee!
The first recipe was utterly fabulous – a pot roast pheasant. I let out a guttural groan when I had my first mouthful – absolutely delicious! The pheasant was slow cooked on a bed of sauerkraut with bacon, onion, carrot, celery, garlic with some Riesling and chicken stock added. Yum, yum, yum!
January’s edition of Delicious should still be available in your local magazine emporium and I heartily recommend to go out and grab one.
As the pheasant was cooking I made myself a pre-dinner cocktail appropriate to the movie. A Mary Astor Painless Anaesthetic. Was there ever a better name for a cocktail? Mary is in The Prisoner of Zenda, and as
I can’t remember ever seeing Mary Astor smile in a movie, so it was great to see this pic of her and Ronald off-set sharing a joke.
Mary Astor’s Astor Painless Anaesthetic
From The Stork Club Bar Book (1946) – makes 2
3 oz gin
1 oz French vermouth
1 oz Italian vermouth
1 oz cognac
Shake well with ice cubes and dash of orange bitters,
It was a mighty fine cocktail, so good in fact that I had two.
With a couple of those and the rest of the bottle of
I was in a VERY good mood as I ate my divine pheasant dinner and watched The Prisoner of Zenda.
Throughout the film I was pondering about who I fancied most.
My conclusion was soon reached. Every time Douglas was onscreen he electrified the place. He’s a cad of course, but a very fanciable one.
The three
Then I scared myself a bit when I
I had a lot of fun making the pheasant dish, getting merry on Mary’s Painless Anaesthetic cocktails and thinking about
Alternative tipples you could have before, during or after The Prisoner of Zenda.
Douglas Fairbanks Cocktail No. 1 (named after Douglas Fairbanks Senior, but I don’t think Douglas Fairbanks Junior would mind)
Madeleine Carroll’s Sauternes Punch
My DVD has the 1952 version of The Prisoner of Zenda as well as the 1937 version. My mum’s heartthrob Stewart Granger is in that one…
6 responses
My New Year cocktail was a Charlie Chaplin that is remarkably similar to one of the Douglas Fairbanks recipes- sloe gin (I used damson), apricot brandy, lime and sugar syrup I think. Delicious and very drinkable!
OOoooh! I’m always looking for new movie star cocktails to try. The Charlie Chaplin sounds great. Where did you come across the recipe, that’s going on the to-do list for sure!
https://www.thespruceeats.com/charlie-chaplin-cocktail-759420
I found it because I wanted a cocktail that used up some of the liqueurs I already had and we’ve made an awful lot of sloe and damson gin/vodka and blackberry whisky. I also had some apricot brandy I made when the apricot tree in our old garden actually had some edible fruit so I chose this. It’s widely cited as being from the 1920’s so I assume Charlie actually drank it!
Oooh, that’s fab Hazel. I am got a copy of The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book winging its way to me right now. Naturally, I am hoping there will be other cocktails named after movie stars in there!
You made your own apricot brandy? YOU ARE MY HERO!
Haha! It’s very easy as well as very good! You just soak the fruit and sugar in the brandy for a couple of months and then strain. And then as well as some delicious brandy you also have done very good apricots that need eating!
I’d highly recommend it if you find ripe apricots for sale in the summer.
You are ON Hazel. I shall be watching the greengrocers like a HAWK for some ripe apricots in the summer!