Saul Bass In A Glass: One Of My Weirder Cocktail Ideas, Realized

I had a dream. A rather ridiculous dream, but whatever. I wanted a movie poster interpreted as a cocktail. And not just any movie poster, mind you — a Saul Bass movie poster. You may not know the name, but you know his work, whether it's the opening title sequences to classic films like Psycho, Goodfellas, and West Side Story; or the corporate logos of AT&T or Kleenex, to name just two — many of which are still used today, more than 20 years after his death. He's one of the great graphic designers of the 20th century, if not the greatest, with all due respect to Milton Glaser.

But it's Bass' movie posters with which I'm really obsessed. He designed film posters from the mid-'50s until shortly before his death in 1996. His style was, and is, instantly recognizable. The bold colors, the silhouetted paper cut-out style which reminds me of Matisse's collages, the distinctive hand lettering, are all as arresting today as they were when he designed them. Bass' influence is still felt, everywhere from the opening credits to Mad Men to record covers to sequences in cartoons.

As far as I know, however, Bass had never been immortalized in a cocktail. So back in 2016, I made the request of the bartender who I figured had the best shot at pulling it off, Schuyler Hunton, then of Tiger Mama in Boston, and currently a portfolio ambassador for Bacardi. Schuyler also happened to be the winner of Bombay Sapphire's 2016 "Most Imaginative Bartender" competition. He was due in New York to talk about his winning cocktail, so I made my request and attached a link to a bunch of Bass' movie posters along with it. I gave Schuyler no guidelines; I didn't even tell him which poster to interpret. I figured, hey, you're the imaginative one. You don't need me telling you what to do.

When we met, after a bit of banter about competition cocktails, Hunton whipped out a knife, wrapped a napkin around most of the blade, and began to delicately filet a slice of orange peel, holding the knife like he'd hold a pencil. "I brought you a cocktail I knew was going to work," he said, because it was already on the menu at Tiger Mama. I was hoping for an all-new exclusive drink, but my disappointment was mitigated by the fact that he'd had the glasses made especially for this cocktail by his friend, glassblower extraordinaire Emery Wenger.

The Bombay Sapphire gin, which makes up the lion's share of the drink, is complemented by cranberry syrup and vermouth, which Hunton considers "a fall riff on the Martinez.” It's delicious — a big, bold flavor with undercurrents of smoke and bitterness, which applies not only to Bass' posters, but to many of the films on which he worked, from The Man With The Golden Arm to Advise & Consent.

But the look of the damn thing... that's what floored me. Here's Saul Bass' poster for Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Vertigo (image copyright Saul Bass):

And here's Schuyler Hunton's cocktail, "Saul Bass In A Glass" (name entirely my fault):

I mean, wow, right?

My favorite way to sip Saul Bass In A Glass is while reading about the man and his genius, in articles like this one or this one. And since his cinematic title designs were of a piece with his posters, it's fun to check this out while tippling, too.

Here's the recipe so you can make it yourself:

SAUL BASS IN A GLASS (created by Schuyler Hunton)
2 oz. Bombay Sapphire Gin
½ oz. cranberry syrup*
½ oz. Alessio Terino vermouth
1 dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters
Rinse cocktail or coupe glass with Laugavulin or other smokey Scotch.
Stir with ice, strain into whisky-rinsed glass.
Garnish with an orange swatch and/or lemon swatch, preferably in the shape of the character in the Vertigo poster.

Cranberry syrup:
4 oz. frozen cranberries
4 oz. white sugar
5 oz. water
Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5-10 minutes until cranberries start to pop.