Ice and Gin Book brings together chronicles about cinema and drinks – 12/12/2023 – Food

The eyes of journalist Daniel de Mesquita Benevides, 59, shine as he observes the shelves filled with liquor bottles behind the bar. “I feel like a kid. I see the bar as if it were an Almodóvar film with touches of old Hollywood,” he says, smiling.

He is sitting at the counter of Caledonia Whiskey & Co, in Pinheiros, chosen as the best bar in the capital of São Paulo in the latest O Melhor de São Paulo, by Sheet. In front of him, head bartender Alison Oliveira completes the show as he meticulously prepares a sazerac, the official drink of New Orleans and the central character of the film “Druk – Mais uma Rounda”.

“It’s playful. The mise en scène is impressive”, says Benevides. This recreational aspect and the romantic look are present in the style he uses in the recently released “Gelo e Gin – Chronicles about drinks, their recipes, cinema, music, literature and other mixtures” (Editora Quelônio).

The book was built based on the homonymous column published by him in this Sheet since 2020. The best texts published in the newspaper were selected, edited and refined into new versions.

Each chapter is a dive into a different cup or glass, focusing on a single drink, but full of references to how it appears in popular culture — whether in music or cinema, in literature or art. “It’s a cocktail. A mix of various elements such as history and culture, and the drink itself sometimes takes a backseat”, he explains.

Benevides’ texts really go beyond drinks. They use drinks as a central theme, but not in a factual approach to their historical or technical aspects. “It’s not the story of the drink, but how it is present in the collective unconscious. I write about the pleasure that the cocktail offers.”

Thus, one can find texts that talk about how different appetizers appear in the work and lives of characters such as Samuel Beckett, Leonard Cohen, James Joyce, Harold Pinter, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Buñuel, Fred Astaire, HL Mencken, Cole Porter, Hunther S. Thompson, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Aldous Huxley and hundreds of others. The book’s title itself is a play on the film “Jules and Jim”, by François Truffaut.

To find so many references, the author says he turned the search for information about drinks into a “mixture of obsession and pleasure.” “I look for references about drinks in everything I read, see and hear. My life is a hunt for epiphanies.”

Raised in a house where people didn’t drink much, Benevides’ first contact with alcohol was not so romantic. He drank a lot of cachaça when he was a teenager and had a terrible hangover. It was only in the 1990s that, fascinated by literature, he began to incorporate the idea of ​​the drink as approached by some of his favorite authors. One day, when ordering a rooster’s tail, the bartender offered to make him a negroni so he could try something different. “I was hooked,” he says.

From then on, he started collecting references and research and testing different cocktails at home. Over time, the hobby became more serious, which was consolidated once and for all with the column.

At the end of each chapter of the book there is the method of preparing the drink described, but the idea is not for the book to be a mere reference on how to prepare the cocktails covered. “Revenue is secondary,” says Benevides. The grace is in the text, he explains, in the way everything is described.

Still, all the recipes in the book are the result of a lot of research and testing. “We need to adapt international recipes to the inputs we have here. Brazilian lemons are more sour than American ones, for example, so the recipe has to reflect that.”

Revenues are also important because of the high price of drinks in specialty bars. The sazerac served at Caledonia, for example, costs a mere R$75. Traditionally prepared with “the best brandy you can”, sugar, bitters and absinthe (as described in the book), the São Paulo bar’s version contains infused rye whiskey with fruits, Rémy Martin, Peychaud’s bitters, angostura and triple syrup. It is balanced and delicate, with a striking scent of anise.

“Part of the appeal of cocktails is the sophistication and aura of exclusivity,” says Benevides, justifying the price issue. “The beauty of cocktails is the flavor, the variety, the best combinations, but bars should have cheaper cocktails.”

The solution to not paying too much and having access, according to him, is to follow the recipes and prepare drinks at home to save money. “Caipirinha is a good cheap drink. Well made, it can be better than any cocktail.”

In addition to the Brazilian classic, he says that the best suggestion for the first drink to prepare is the dry martini, which can be made with the cheapest gin and dry vermouth, and can be good even if it costs little. Another alternative is the old fashioned, made with a dose of bourbon, a touch of angostura and sugar. “At home, it’s what I drink most often,” he says.

At Caledonia, Oliveira served an original version of this latest classic with a touch of chocolate and cheese. The bourbon gained a touch of citrus oil, roasted cocoa bitters and the scent of grana padano — which brings to the palate the feeling you get when taking a shot of whiskey while eating a piece of cheese. The pairing is surprising, interesting and comes ready in the glass.

This type of reinterpretation, Benevides explains, guarantees a long life for his work of scrutinizing what is behind the drinks. “The cocktail party doesn’t end. I thought it would end in a hundred texts, but there have been more than 200 and I have at least 50 more to go.”