Besides popcorn and Netflix binges or Pip’s chai with doughnuts, one of the all-time great pairings has to be music and a well-mixed drink. That’s the idea behind Booze and Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music & Mixed Drinks, a new book by Philly-based brother-sister food-and-drink writing duo André and Tenaya Darlington. It couples 70 iconic albums from the 1930s through the early 2000s with two classic cocktail recipes each—one for the record's A-side, and one for its B-side.

The Darlingtons hit Portland on June 19 for a book signing/listening party for Booze and Vinyl at Music Millennium. (One thing we'd ask: how they convinced Clyde Common bar manager and recent Late Night TV guest star Jeffrey Morgenthaler to contribute a recipe.)

The book’s organizing conceit is mood—rock, dance, chill, and seduce—and each of the albums has a listening party theme rec too. Love Blondie’s Parallel Lines? Try jamming out to “Hanging on the Telephone” with a “Golden Cadillac” cocktail packed with Galliano, white crème de cacao, and cream. Prefer a mellower affair? Spin Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago whilst sipping a gin-and-Chartreuse, Prohibition-era Last Word cocktail. (A pro-tip from the sibs? Tennis balls placed on the legs of your record player’s table make great shock absorbers for all those robust dance moves that might cause the record to skip.)

The brother and sister initially started hosting happy hours on Google Hangouts together back in 2014 as a way to keep in touch while living more than 900 miles apart. They drank their way through 500 recipes in less than a year to create their first craft cocktail book, The New Cocktail Hour. Then, almost immediately after their second book TCM's Movie Night Menus (dinner and drink recipes to accompany 30 classic films) hit the shelves in 2016, the Darlingtons got to work on Booze and Vinyl. 

Growing up, the Darlingtons say home revolved around music and entertaining. André recalls: “The turntable was really the center of the household. We had it near the dining room and the living room so we were always flipping records whether we were hanging out or during dinner time.”  Tenaya adds, “There was pretty much music from the minute we woke up to the minute we went to bed. Often after we went to bed our dad would still be listening to records with his friends.”

Since the Portland event falls on National Martini Day, they offered up a recipe for a Pernod-enhanced martini…best sipped while to listening to Side A of Carole King’s Tapestry.

Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini

Invented by New York bartender Audrey Saunders, owner of Pegu Club, this sipper is sultry and mature. Pour yourself one on the couch and pull a wool blanket over your knees.

• 2 ounces vodka
• ½ ounce Laphroaig
• 6 drops Pernod
• Lemon twist, for garnish

Stir ingredients and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon.

Reprinted with permission from BOOZE AND VINYL © 2018 by André Darlington & Tenaya Darlington, Running Press

Booze & Vinyl Book Signing

6 p.m. Tue, June 19, Music Millennium, FREE