Making Drinks From the Movie Cocktail - Can I Beat Tom Cruise?

Hi, Friends of Cocktails, I’m Kevin Kos, and today I’m making cocktails from the most influential bartending movie: Cocktail. I studied the movie, made notes, and tried the cocktails so you don’t have to. But the goal of today’s episode is not to show you how they were made in the movie, it’s to turn those cocktails into something good enough for cocktail bars around the world today–and I’ll give you some tips along the way to help you do the same with other famous cocktails from movies and shows.

Along the way I’ll show a few hacks that you can use for other cocktails as well. I now have 20 years of experience, but once I was a rookie bartender just like young Mr. Flanagan, but is Tom a better flair bartender than me? You’ll have to figure that out by watching the full episode on YouTube, which I’ll link at the end of today’s post. 

One thing that’s for sure is that I could easily relate to Tom Cruise as the young bartender making his first cocktails and struggling with the basics. The first Cuba Libre I ever made was… shaken. I was still a complete rookie, with a list of ingredients and I just thought every cocktail had to be shaken. Luckily, my cousin, who was the owner of the bar, saw what I was doing and gave me my first important lesson: never shake anything fizzy!

That’s why the movie Cocktail is more than just a romantic drama set in bars. But in case you have yet to see it, the 1988 movie stars Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, and Bryan Brown as his cynical mentor Doug Coughlin. Aside from the drama, love and heartbreak, it showed that if you’re willing to work hard you can make a name for yourself, entertain crowds, and chase your dreams.

Cocktail also made flair bartending really popular, but let’s focus on the cocktails and see if I can make them better. The first cocktail I’ll make is the last one we see Brian Flanagan make in the movie, the Daiquiri. He makes it blended, and that’s fine, they make it that way in Cuba as well–and here's our first hack: when making blended drinks, always use crushed or pebble ice. It will give your drinks a smoother texture, instead of it being full of ice chunks.

Frozen Daiquiri (Single Serve)

● 60mL · 2oz White Rum

● 30mL · 1oz Simple Syrup

● 30mL · 1oz Lime Super Juice

● 2 drops 20% Saline Solution

● 150g Crushed or Pebble Ice

While we’ll start with a sengle serve to help you get an idea of the build, I recommend making a triple batch instead as single serves won’t blend as smoothly, which is maybe why they served blended daiquiris in hurricane glasses in the movie. So add in the ingredients to a high-powered blender, then blend until it’s nice and smooth before serving it in a nicely chilled coupe. 

We can now move onto the next cocktail, the Cuba Libre, which Mr. Flanagan gets to make while he’s slammed with orders–a situation you don’t want to be in on your first night. Back at my job we used to say you were “swimming”, but it felt more like drowning with so many people ordering drinks at the same time.

Instead of the classic Cuba Libre, this time we’ll make a clarified and carbonated version, which brings us to tip #2: you can use flavored milk or milk alternatives to give your milk-clarified cocktails an additional flavor profile. Coconut, almond, or chocolate milk all work, and even goat milk would work, but be careful with how much you use as it will add a lot of flavor.

Clarified Coke & Lime

● 500mL · 17oz Coca Cola

● 90mL · 3oz Fresh Lime Juice

● 150mL · 5oz Coconut Milk

So first, let’s mix the cola and lime juice, stirring those together so we get rid of the carbonation. Now pour the mixture over the coconut milk, which will add in subtle coconut notes that will pair nicely with the rum base of the Cuba Libre. Leave this to sit for about half an hour, then pour it through a coffee filter. 

If the first liquid coming through isn’t clear at the start, just move the filter and re-filter that first part, but once it’s filtered, bottle it and place it in the fridge to chill. We now have the ingredients we need to build the elevated Cuba Libre.

Clarified Rum & Soda

● 120mL · 4oz Diplomatico Planas

● 240mL · 8oz Clarified Coke & Lime

● 8 drops 20% Saline Solution

● 1 CO₂ cartridge

● Lime Peel Strings Garnish

This recipe will make 4 servings, as just like with our previous cocktail, we’ll get a better result by using a bigger batch. So add the ingredients into a carbonator, I’m going with the iSi Twist & Sparkle, then charge it with a single CO₂ cartridge. You can keep this in the fridge, but we’ll serve it right away into a glass with a clear ice spear, garnishing with lime peel strings, before moving onto our final cocktail: the Red Eye. 

To make the Red Eye, Mr. Flanagan starts with a beer, which makes sense as bartenders love beer. Then he adds tomato juice and hot sauce, making it a Bloody Mary twist. He also adds in two pills, probably aspirin, but that’s not going to help with everything else, and of course finishes it off with a whole egg. Without the aspirin this drink it’s better than expected, but we can turn it into something great.

Remember, I said we’re making drinks that you could find on the menu of a cocktail bar today, so dropping in the whole egg at the end is out of the question, and we’re not adding aspirin either. Mixing alcohol and pills is never a good idea. I still think I've found a way of using all the main parts of the Red Eye, but elevating it enough for the modern palate by making a fizz cocktail.

We’ll start by concentrating the flavor of tomato juice, while also clarifying it for a result that holds onto carbonation better. This gives us a great tip, so use cryo-concentration to clarify and intensify your juices, cordials, and shrubs. 

Clarified Tomato Juice

● Fresh, Ripe Tomatoes

I’ll start by cutting and blending some fresh, ripe tomatoes. Then pour this blended tomato puree into a container and place that in the freezer. Let it freeze all the way through, before placing that block of frozen tomato juice on a strainer and let it slowly melt. The flavorful tomato juice will melt through, giving you a clear result.

With that we’re ready to build what I’ll call the Fizzy Eye. The beer will be added last, and the tomato juice is clarified. The base of this cocktail will be scotch. We’re keeping the hot sauce, salt, adding some Worcester sauce,

Fizzy Eye

● 45mL · 1.5oz Scotch Whisky

● 45mL · 1.5oz Clarified Tomato Juice

● 15mL · 0.5oz Simple Syrup

● 15mL · 0.5oz Lemon Juice

● 1 dash Hot Sauce

● 1 dash Worcestershire Sauce

● 1 dash 20% Saline Solution

● 22.5mL · 0.75oz Vegg White

● 60g · 2oz Cold Lager Beer

I’ll start by separating the egg white through a hawthorne strainer, then I’m adding the ingredients into the shaker with the exception of the beer of course. A little hack I’m pretty sure Brian Flanagan would use is to simply grab a bottle of an egg white replacement, like Vegg White here, give it a shake and pour that in. No dealing with messy eggs needed.

Once we have all the base ingredients you can do a classic dry shake, or take the easier way of frothing up the whole cocktail using a milk frother. Then add ice and give it a good shake to chill the cocktail. Double strain into a chilled highball glass and wait for the frothy head to settle on the top before topping off the cocktail with cold beer, raising the foamy crown a bit over the edge of the glass. 

I’d say we had a successful day, but remember I was also interested in finding out if I could do better flair bartending than Brian Flanagan. I did a bit of flair bartending at an early stage of my career, and as long as your bottles are prepped, you practice enough and you’re not slowing down the workflow too much, it can be really fun.

When you’re entertaining a guest you can even get away with the speedpour being off by a small amount, especially with drinks that are made with fruit juices, liqueurs and a sweet&sour mix. So as long as the drink you make tastes good and everyone’s having a good time, go for it. There’s a time and a place to enjoy flair bartending, just like the speakeasy is a place to appreciate the art of mixology.

So watch the fuIl episode below, remember to never shake anything fizzy, and if you want more beer cocktails check out this playlist. Until next time, cheers!