Movers and Shakers: Paul Feig x The Rake Cocktail Column
Our intrepid columnist adds gin to a ‘Shakerato’ — a delicious spin on an iced coffee — to invent a cocktail that will soon have a certain trendy Californian metropolis licking its lips...
I love L.A. But I didn’t always.
I moved to the city in 1981, to be a tour guide at Universal Studios at the tender age of 17, hellbent on becoming a movie star. When my best friend and I pulled into the heart of Hollywood after driving for 48 hours from Michigan, I expected to see the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard teeming with movie stars. Instead, a drugged-out party girl jumped on the hood of my car at a stop light and started screaming profanities at me through my windshield.
Welcome to L.A.
Los Angeles is a difficult town to figure out, and an even more difficult town to tame. Not that it is tameable. L.A. tames you. It trains you how to deal with it. And through its training, you tame it. Sound confusing? Try driving in L.A. for the first time. People who think they’re good drivers in their hometowns can be reduced to tears driving here. Those of us who have tamed L.A. take great pleasure in training non- L.A.-savvy drivers through sheer aggression and humiliation. Going too slow? We’ll ride your ass. Not know where you’re going? We’ll lay on the horn to get you out of our way. It’s all part of the training. You bend to L.A. because L.A. will not bend to you.
Sound awful? It is — until you get used to it. Once you find your routine — your friends, your favourite places, your community — Los Angeles becomes a wonderful city. It’s an industry town, for sure. Showbusiness is everywhere. Pretty much anybody you meet is trying to make it as an actor or writer or director or performer or artist of some sort. It’s a creative town filled with creative people who are all chasing the golden ring of fame and fortune. Some people hate the town because of that, but I find it thrilling. L.A. is the land of opportunity and heartbreak, of realised hopes and broken dreams. It can all turn on a dime at any moment. And it all happens under the bright blue L.A. sky.
Los Angeles is the land of opportunity and heartbreak, and it can all turn on a dime in any moment.
L.A. is a very trendy town, too. One of the current obsessions in the cocktail world is the espresso martini. Now, from my previous columns you may have noticed my snobbery when it comes to martinis. I’ll say it again: just because a drink comes in a martini glass does not make it a martini. A martini is gin with a bit of vermouth and an olive or lemon twist. End of story. But I’ve always been a bit more tolerant of the espresso martini because it’s pretty damn delicious and because so many people like it that it’s just too Scroogy to tell people what they’re drinking is a lie. But what I can do is try to offer everyone an alternative.
While living in Rome as I was shooting my film Another Simple Favour last year, my wife, Tipsy (Laurie to those of you new to my column), and I loved to sit and have coffee at Sant’ Eustachio Il Caffè, which is a famous old coffee place around the corner from the Pantheon. It was there we discovered the Shakerato, a cold Italian coffee drink comprised of espresso and syrup that’s shaken in a cocktail shaker with ice until it turns foamy. It’s a fun and delicious spin on an iced coffee that cools you down on a hot Italian summer day.
It was Tipsy who first had the idea to add some booze into the mix. Back in L.A., she made her own Shakerato by adding Baileys and a bit of milk. I then added gin, to help cut the sweetness of the Baileys and, well, make it a proper cocktail. You can serve it either in a cocktail glass or in a highball glass with ice, which is my preferred way to enjoy it.
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The Tipsy Shakerato • 2 oz. hot espresso Put all the ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously to froth the drink. Pour liquid and ice into a highball glass or strain into a chilled cocktail glass. |
L.A. is also a city propped up by hardworking immigrants who are under siege by the current U.S. administration. If you’d like to help protect their rights, please donate to the National Immigration Law Center (nilc.org) and Public Counsel (publiccounsel.org).
