Ingredients:
1 pint of lager
1 shot of port
MISSION BRIEF: Make a Star Wars inspired cocktail.
COCKTAIL RATING: laughably easy
HIT OR MISS: Miss (unless you have a problem and there are groups for that)
If the news that the Star Wars franchise has been bought out by Disney gave you cause to lament, this is just the drink for you. It’s dead easy to make, you just get a pint of lager or beer of your choice, then sink a shot of port into it and chug it down. The taste is only one I can describe as regret.
Being 30 (though looking 16 and still getting carded at bars and shops), I cannot remember a world without Star Wars. When I was just a wee bairn, we had Episodes IV through VI on long play VHS, recorded off the television some holiday or other. I can still remember the Camel cigarette advert in one of the breaks and that’s showing the age, as nobody’s allowed to advertise tobacco products any more. In case you’re curious, it’s the one based on the Trojan Horse, but it’s a camel instead. My little sister, in the manner of all young children everywhere, watched A New Hope every day until the tape actually snapped and we were left without. Naturally, also being children, albeit older ones, my older sister and I never really let her forget that.
I could recite every line of dialogue in all three movies (I still do when I’m with my sisters and there’s nobody there to judge me) and I’m sure everyone in my generation can say the same.
Those movies are full of nostalgia to me, I learned about things like honour, having mystical powers and mistrusting big organisations that have space stations capable of blowing up entire planets. These are ideas to live by. A code, if you will.
In 1999, when I was a fresh, wide-eyed 17 year old, I was so excited for the release of the Phantom Menace. My sisters and I went to the first showing we could book in a lovely little cinema that has since closed down. It was called the Robins Cinema in Camberley and it had the most comfortable seats of any theatre I’ve ever been in. They were a bit old, but there was still some plush left in the red velvet-like fabric and they had thick bases you could almost sink into. The air smelt like stale popcorn and vacuum cleaners. We were all so excited when the Lucas Film logo came on.
Oh how our dreams were dashed. Into little itty pieces on the rocks of marketable action figures and lunch-box art.
I went to see all three of those new movies, my heart sinking a bit with each one until I got to the stage that I just gave up on the franchise. I still have the original trilogy, having chosen not to acknowledge the direness of the first three by actually, you know, buying anything to do with them. I freely acknowledge that Star Wars never was the height of literary mastery, it was and is riddled with clichés. No matter how many dragons you stick into that story (Eragon), it’s never going to be profoundly life changing or a work of great fiction.
But that’s okay.
I don’t need Star Wars to change my life, because it’s always been a part of my life. It’s a good yarn about triumph against overwhelming odds. It doesn’t need to put on airs and graces, it just needs to be what it is.
This is why I chose such a terrible combination of drinks to mash together. And believe me, one of these will get you plenty mashed, so approach the Exhaust Port with caution. The port is the original trilogy, aged but full of the richness of your childhood memories, the emotions it conjured up and the joy it gave you. The lager’s the prequel trilogy, lacking in substance and leaving you feeling a little bit queasy.
It’s one of those macho bullshit drinks that tastes terrible, but you want to get to the end of it to show your mates that you can, because we all want our friends’ approval enough that we can be persuaded to make “great life decisions”.
Like the promise held in the prequels. We wanted so much for them to be good and they weren’t. Red Letter Media does the definitive break down on Star Wars Episodes I through III that I won’t even attempt to touch the same ground. Anyone interested in film making should give those reviews a look, they’re a splendid Movie Making 101 – Stuff Not To Do.
But.
But, but, but, but, but …
I see hope in the future for Star Wars. The prequels were dark days indeed, but what a lot of fans are missing when they go screaming that there might be three new movies of suffering is this:
Disney also owns Marvel.
And Avengers Assemble was an excellent movie ( I ❤ Tony Stark and am not afraid to say it). They got a good director and a good crew and the creative team behind it who were not a single man who owns the entire franchise and rocked up to the set with what reads like a first draft film treatment.
When you reach the end of the glass of regrets and poor choices that is the Exhaust Port, there is relief. You made it without throwing up (though you probably had to belch along the way, it’s that kind of drink. Better out than in). Better drinks, and better movies, are ahead.
Nobody can force you to have that next drink, just like nobody can force you to watch the new movies when they come out. But just remember the lesson the Exhaust Port taught you.
Nothing can ever be as bad as what you just experienced.
May the Force be with you, always.
— seriously, midichlorians?! Get out.
Please obey the law of your local state and/or country and only drink if you are of legal age and don’t drink and drive.
Mark Brassington 