Celebrate The Academy Awards With Two Oscar-Worthy, Starring Cocktail Recipes Saluting Artists & Oscar History

 

The Oscars call for a few good cocktails to celebrate Hollywood’s big night of fashion, film, and more than brief moments of frisson. 

From the standards ~ “The envelope please,” to “I want to thank God/Mother” to the astonishing (the Slap), Oscar night is a glamorous, fun evening of entertainment. 

Here’s a bit of Oscar history and lore, and two fabulous Cocktails inspired by two of this year’s big blockbuster movies: "BarbenHeimer."

Cocktails, just like movies, need a good story to be a star.

Who Named Oscar?

The first Academy Awards took place in 1929. The end of the Roaring Twenties and bathtub gin…

Honorees represented the five categories of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: actors, directors, producers, technicians, and writers. 

     

Since 1939 the awards presented to the best in the film industry, the name “Oscar” was officially adopted.

Leave it to a woman to christen the little lad.  

According to History Facts, “Bruce Davis, who spent 20 years as the academy’s executive director, the Oscar nickname began to make its way through the Hollywood community sometime between 1930 and 1933.”

Davis suggests Eleanore Lilleberg deserves credit for inventing the Oscar alias. 

Lilleberg was an academy secretary and office assistant during the award's early days, and part of her duties included managing the statuettes before the ceremony. Stories have occasionally surfaced that she jokingly called the award “Oscar,” which Davis claims is the true origin of the name. While researching his book The Academy and the Award, he came across an autobiography by Lilleberg’s brother, California artist Einar Lilleberg, at the tiny Lilleberg Museum in Green Valley, California. Einar’s text claimed that his sister referred to the awards as “Oscar” in honor of a Norwegian army veteran she knew in their hometown of Chicago. Einar described the veteran as, like the famous statuette, always "standing straight and tall." 

So, being that March is Women’s History Month, and we just feted International Women’s Day, let’s salute Eleanore Lilleberg.  Eleanore may be little known ~ but she did have a museum named for her!  

I salute Eleanore and the Awards with two Oscar Film-inspired cocktails:  

• Barbie’s Pink Cloud Cotton-Candy Confection 

• Manhattan Project Cherry Bombe

For those of you who follow me regularly, I hope you’re still enjoying the pink fantasy drink I was inspired to create after seeing Barbie the movie. For the second time.

I am preparing myself to be crushed by the film not winning big time for the movie or the screenplay.  Girls deserve better…A pox on Oscar ~ and patriarchy.

Cheers to our girls. 👏

Barbie is a dream girl ~ potent and pretty.  And inspiring…

Having left the cinema featuring Barbie the Movie determined to design a Barbie Dream Garden, (see previous Post), I also wanted to honor her with her very own signature Barbie Cocktail.

I knew the drink would have to be equally pretty-in-pink, glamorous, and delicious.

Here’s my fun, cotton-candy, cocktail confection.

Barbie Pink Cloud Cotton-Candy Confection 

Inspired by Barbie’s beauty, brains, and spunky fun, I wanted to make this an easy to shake up, tasty drink for any occasion.

As the author of Art of the Garnish, I’ve created cocktails for the book, as well as for couples’ signature wedding drink to celebrate their special celebration.  

I hope you’ll agree that our girl will enjoy sipping this cocktail for a girls night or a dance party.  In the real world, I hope you'll enjoy for a girls night in, brunch, shower, or any time you want to enjoy a pretty, pink pick-me-up. 

Ingredients:

• 2-3 jiggers Malibu Rum ~ Because!  As a nod to Malibu Barbie. Plus, the sweet coconut flavor suits the spirit.  You can also use the Whipped Cream Vodka if that’s how you “choose your fire.” (wink😉)  

• 1 jigger Strega Herbal liqueur ~ Because Barbie has cast a spell on us for so long.  Strega is “witch” in Italian and this spirit has a rich, bright taste with over notes of mint and fennel. 

• 6-8 ounces Pink Lemonade

• 2-3 shakes of Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters

Method:

Put all the ingredients in a shaker filled with 4-5 ice cubes.  Shake. Pour into a chilled martini glass.

I used my pretty, pink Flamingo glasses.  Of course, I did! 

Garnish: 

I picked some fresh mint from my garden. Float on top.  You can add a few Luxardo maraschino cherries.

The piece de resistance though, is the pink cotton candy.  We have a cotton candy machine at home. Of course we do! 

If you don’t have one to make fresh, you can purchase cotton candy.

* Note: the cotton candy, like another witch we know about ~ will melt upon coming into contact with the drink, so be sure to set on the side/top of the glass above the liquid. Or just serve the cotton candy on the side so 

you and your guests can pluck away and enjoy this frothy, pink cloud treat. 

         

Cheers! 

Manhattan Project 

I have long been passionate about the classic Manhattan cocktail.  Or the “Dark Martini” as I’d often refer to it ~ when referencing or referring to in comparison to my favorite: the Duchess Martini (see in my Art of the Garnish book).

Inspired by the Oppenheimer film that is probably going to sweep the Oscars ~ and the story that is based on the Manhattan Project that started in Manhattan ~ at the site of what is now Columbia University with $6K seed money funding from the US government ~ before moving to the Los Alamos, New Mexico desert where the race to produce the world’s first nuclear weapons…. 

In a spirited way, I came up with this twist on the Manhattan cocktail:

Manhattan Project Cherry Bombe 

Ingredients:

• 2-3 jiggers Rye Whiskey

• 1-2 jiggers Amaro 

• Dash or two of the Cherry Bitters

• Dash of Orange Bitters

Method:

Stir well with ice, strain into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass. It IS the Oscars, after all. 

Garnish:

A few Luxardo Cherries to “bomb” the glass

This drink is a riff on the Dark Manhattan. The Manhattan Project, was, after all, a dark undertaking…

Cheers to all the artists.  May your favorite films take home the Oscar.  

But most of all, I hope you enjoy a very glamorous, fun evening. 

From the red-carpet fashions to the final curtain.