I’m a fan of a pun, and back when having a small New Years Eve 
gathering with friends was still a possibility, I requested Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist and Gone with the Gin: Cocktails with a Hollywood Twist by Tim Federle from my library. My idea was to find a couple of options for fun literary and movie inspired beverages for a crowd that was intended to include no less than 5 current and former Cannonballers (if you’re my friend long enough I will try to recruit you for Cannonball Read, it’s just what happens).
If that had been able to happen, these books would have absolutely hit the mark, and been fun to pass around and read from. I may yet do that part, as we’re intending to do a virtual hangout again this year and each of the cocktails or recipes included in the books is directly tied to a book or movie and Federle provides a snappy one paragraph description with some fun humor, puns, and history packed in.
I think Tequila Mockingbird might be my favorite of the two (there’s at least two more in the series, Hickory Daquiri Dock: Cocktails with a Nursery Rhyme Twist and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margarita: More Cocktails with a Literary Twist, although my library system only has the latter) if only because it contains the widest variety of beverage and snack options, including non-alcoholic options for those amongst us who are not interested in imbibing. Tequila Mockingbird includes sixty-five drinks recipes including The Pitcher of Dorian Grey Goose, The Last of the Mojitos, Love in the Time of Kahlua, Romeo and Julep, and A Rum of One’s Own (c’mon, how can you resist these names?). Best of all, and the option I likely would have employed in a New Years situation is the Book Clubs section which gives instructions for things that can go in your punch bowl for group service including the above-mentioned Pitcher of Dorian Grey, and my personal favorite The Portrait of a Pink Lady, which includes gin, pink lemonade, grenadine, and club soda.
Gone with the Gin includes a further fifty movie-based drinks and snacks, no alcohol-free options in this one though. The great illustrations are back and truly Lauren Mortimer does an exquisite job with what look to my untrained eye to be pencil drawings at catching the drinks, the puns, and the recognizable visuals from the movies in her work. I prefer how this book breaks down the recipes into groups – we’re in genres here unlike Tequila Sunrise which was oddly gendered. I still have a few weeks left on my library checkouts for these so I’m planning to keep them and possibly try some of the options once I’m able to get more supplies. Which should be easy to do, as the indexes in each book are set up both by title and ingredient.