Drinking and Watching

Like Wendell Jamieson, I increasingly find my drinking habits heavily influenced by the films I am watching. I first started noticing this in the last year as I've engaged in television series for the first time in a decade. I realized when watching Deadwood how much more straight whiskey I was drinking, sometimes backed with a beer, sometimes not. After finishing that show, I've moved on to Mad Men, which of course has spawned a whole literature on the nation's alcohol habits in the early 1960s. And while I haven't been drinking old-fashioneds like Don Draper, I have significantly increased my consumption of martinis and Manhattans, while my drinking of straight whiskey has declined just as much.

I like the idea of trying to match my alcohol with the movie. I can't be too exacting--after all, while I have a not small amount of alcohol in the house, I hardly have the money for everything. But I can be in the ballpark most of the time. Of course, when it's a movie I haven't watched before, I have to guess what the alcohol of choice will be. Last night, I watched Lukas Moodysson's fine film Together, about a Swedish commune in the early 70s. I figured that since they were Swedes, vodka would be the drink of choice. I was wrong (it was wine) but whatever. It's fun to guess.