Pair audiobooks with the right libation for the perfect holiday retreat.
You know what go together? Voices and liquids. A “liquid voice” is even an expression. Brooks babble. Words pour in your ears. What am I getting at? The supply chain. There’s a large chance you will not be able to get a hot, hard, physical copy of many books being released this holiday season, because, as I understand supply chain disruptions to work, the Omicron Variant is now eating trees. No paper means no books.
Which brings me back to my point: audiobooks. You know what else pours during the holiday season? Cocktails. And you know what goes great with cocktails? Comfortable loungewear. So do armchairs. A fireplace. Your relatives, arguing in another room. Doesn’t matter. They’re not a part of this fantasy because you can’t hear them. It’s a freezing cold winter night, the hearth is ablaze, the moon is out, someone’s reading you a bedtime story, and you’re sipping.
What are you sipping on? Bookclubz. When is a Bookclubz content editor also a bartender? When he wants to pay rent. I’m kidding. The answer is now. The time is now. Do you want to drink the wrong drink with the wrong audiobook? Of course not. You deserve the best.
The smarter choice? A list of Bookclubz cocktail and audiobook pairings that will never stop looking out for your mouth and ears. And where else to find audiobooks than at our partner Libro.fm, where you can buy audiobooks through your local bookstore! Very tasteful.
Click the link in each heading to get a copy of the audiobook, support independent booksellers, and indulge yourself.
Number One: A Fine Bourbon and Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey, read by Matthew McConaughey
What other entries do we even need? Do you really need to be convinced to sit in a comfortable chair and sip a bourbon slowly while Dallas from Magic Mike reads his autobiography to you? I’m pretty sure even Matthew McConaughey himself is doing this right now.
Drink Recipe: For bourbon, I like Four Roses or Woodford Reserve, and we don’t have any brand sponsorships for this piece, so I really actually do like those. Pour it in a glass that feels like a decision you’re proud of when you hold it in your hand, and sip away.
If you want to make something a little fancier to impress Matthew, you can try a perfect manhattan.
Perfect Manhattan: 2 parts bourbon, 1 part dry white vermouth, 1 part red vermouth. Add these ingredients in a shaker and then shake it until your hand hurts from how cold it is. Strain the result into a glass. You can add a tart syrupy cherry if you want. There’s no wrong way to do this.
This will taste like the start of a great story.
Number Two: Becoming by Michelle Obama (read by Michelle Obama) and an Exceptionally Dry, Exceptionally Cold Martini
Go get changed. Long underwear isn’t going to cut it for this one. It’s been two years since any of us has used an iron, but when they go low, we go high. A few chapters into this you’re going to be pacing around and planning eight stages of your five-year-plan at once anyway. Dress the part.
Drink Recipe: Michelle wouldn’t tolerate a watery pathetic martini with a ton of vermouth, and neither should you. I am not going to get bogged down in the petty partisan politics of gin versus vodka. It’s not red states or blue states, it’s the United States. Use 10 parts of it, whichever it is, to one teeny part of dry white vermouth, in a shaker.
You are going to want to shake this shaker until you forget what life was like before shaking. Empires will rise and fall and crumble to dust, and you will regard them from on high. Shaking.
At this point, after a thick rime of frost has covered the shaker and all hope is lost, you’re ready. Ideally, you would chill your martini glass, but I forgot to tell you to do that, and also you don’t need a martini glass. Pour. Add an olive or two, or a twist of lemon, or don’t. Blaze your own path.
The first sip will taste like an executive decision.
Number Three: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Obviously with Scotch, but Specifically with a "Tartan Cider"
You’ve probably heard of Outlander the show, and maybe even Outlander the book. But: do those delightful Scottish accents belong on some flashing box in your living room? No. They should start at your earlobes and ripple directly into your mind. Davina Porter, the narrator, is good at this.
Claire, an English nurse from the twentieth century, is transported to Scotland in 1748 when she touches a magic stone. You know what happens next. Scotch also tastes like an impossible love story spun across the centuries. Or you hate it. There’s no middle ground.
So we’re calling in the best to construct a middle ground.
If Ron Swanson can cry at Scots poetry, then you can give Tartan Cider a chance, friend. First off, nothing is better at mediation than fruit. So we’re using two: lemon juice and apple cider (I’m borrowing this recipe from the Gastronom Blog).
You will need a peated scotch like Laphroaig for this to taste the most like something James Fraser would drink smolderingly. Speaking of smoldering, if you don’t like scotch, Laphroaig will smell like someone’s basement was set on fire. So feel free to try a cheaper and milder blended scotch like Johnnie Walker if you want.
Combine 1.5 ounces of it with 1 ounce of cider. Halve a fresh lemon. Then squirt it twice into a separate mixing glass with the other ingredients.
This is an elite-level cocktail tip to be treasured for the rest of your life. Always use a separate glass to mix a drink if you’re not shaking it. Fill it with way more ice than you think you need. And always take an umbrella and one outfit out of your suitcase before a vacation. Always. Do it for the highlands.
Number Four: Liane Moriarty, Apples Never Fall, and, Yes, It's Clearly Chardonnay But Hear Me Out Please
Look. Is it easy to be judgmental? Don’t ask the mysterious owner of a bike left on a street in the first scene of Apples Never Fall, because she’s probably dead. Or at least gone.
Are there attractive people caught in the grip of intrigue in Apples Never Fall? You bet your ass. Is this perhaps a bit of a theme with Liane Moriarty? Not important--next question: have I stopped reading yet, even though I need to write the rest of this article? Absolutely not.
We often think of chardonnay as an American power wine that tastes like the color yellow and which prevents you from tasting anything else for the rest of your afternoon salad lunch. There’s no shame in that. While I could start talking about oak, Liane has just given me a master class in how not to be boring.
French chardonnays taste more like a fine stone dust drifting in a sunbea--Wait; there’s no way the dad actually did it, right? (Try a Macon-Villages. This is serious advice. Have a second glass too, you deserve it.)
Number Five: Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary: Oh Boy Is It Ever A White Russian (Gin and Tonic Honorable Mention)
I’ve already voiced considerable enthusiasm for Project Hail Mary! This is an ingenious, crafty, and fun sci fi novel about solving a lot of problems. With a buddy. That’s a key concept for the following justification of my drink choice. Please pay attention.
Do whole milk and vodka go together? Oh dear. I thought I said solving problems. Then why, with a splash of kahlua, does the whole thing become a silky, supple slip and slide into a house-sized ice cream sundae from a perfect childhood you never had? Ingenuity, that's why. And unexpected chemistry--the exact values of Project Hail Mary.
Unlikely friends form the strongest bond, people. Whether they’re in a glass or in a spaceship restarting the sun. And you will take your earbuds out at 3 A.M. immediately missing Rocky and the protagonist’s dynamic.
To actually make a white Russian, ignore the pro tip I just gave you and pour all the ingredients into the glass you’ll be drinking out of. This is because, again, for some reason, we’re dealing with milk. Time is not our friend (as in the novel). Use equal parts Kahlua, vodka, and whole milk. Stir for at least a minute.
The hangover you will get if you have more than one of these will make you request the actual Sun be destroyed. Please keep that in mind.
Honorable mention goes to a gin and tonic for Project Hail Mary, even though it’s the wrong season, because the British wanted to combine getting drunk and curing malaria into one item. That’s also ingenious, and unexpected. But probably not cozy enough for your armchair.
Number Six: Laura Dave, The Last Thing He Told Me, and The Last Wine He Poured Me is a Good (maybe Slightly Expensive) California Pinot Noir
We’re at the end. I can’t believe it. The narrator of The Last Thing He Told Me is at the end too--of her marriage, when her husband disappears.
Let me be real with you for a moment. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about surly teenagers, or fathers protecting daughters or love at first sight, or a lot of the plot points that go on in The Last Thing He Told Me.
But it also probably isn’t the first time you’ve come home and gotten comfortable on your couch. Or gone to bed. Lest I turn completely into Paul Giamatti from Sideways, there’s nothing wrong with safety. The wife character, Hannah, is a professional wood-turner who can afford property in Sausalito? Let’s do it. Fulfill my wishes.
Actually, I am going to turn completely into Paul Giamatti from Sideways, because I’m recommending a pinot noir as the wine of wish fulfillment, and one from the Russian River Valley region of California no less. Hannah could probably get a great restored farmhouse there too. Life doesn’t have to be hard. It can be velvety and free and a beautiful purple color.
Afterthoughts/Takeaways
Remember, whether the book in question is any of these or the next book for your club, you have the power to make your reading an experience, not just drudgery, or a demanding task you might skip when you run out of time because our society hates leisure. Article over. I’d say more but I have to get back to Liane Moriarty. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, create a Bookclubz account to stick around for more like it! And make sure you're subscribed to our blog.