Posted on October 3, 2020

Scroll on to score some delightful cocktail recipes to pair with some of this year's most libatious films.

With just one more day to purchase your streams (and 48 hours to watch - even after the festival ends), celebrate #CIFF2020 with a drink in hand and some of the best movies of the year on your home screens. BROWSE FILMS 

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ANOTHER ROUND, Vodka Martini

• 2 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• Green olive or strip lemon zest for garnish

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the vodka and vermouth and shake until well chilled. Strain into a martini glass, garnish with olive or lemon peel and serve.

ABOUT THE FILM: Four teachers test a theory that a constant level of intoxication will improve the results of their classrooms.

DEATH OF A LADIES' MAN, The Red Needle 

• 2 oz. tequila 
• 1 slice lemon
• Cranberry juice

For this cocktail created by Leonard Cohen, into one very tall glass, about half full of crushed ice, add the tequila and enough cranberry juice to top up the glass. Garnish with lemon.

ABOUT THE FILM: A carousing professor's life takes a series of unimaginable turns when he begins to have surreal hallucinations in this dramedy set to the music of Leonard Cohen.

MARYGOROUND, Atomic Champagne Cocktail 

• 1 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1 tsp. sherry
• 1 1/2 oz. brut champagne

Stir the vodka, brandy, and sherry well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and add brut champagne.

ABOUT THE FILM: Mary's life goes from unexciting to an erotic adventure when she starts taking hormone replacement therapy on the eve of her 50th birthday.

THE OAK ROOM, Boilermaker

• Beer
• 1 oz. rye whiskey

Pour the whiskey into a shot glass, and fill a pint glass halfway with beer. Drop the shot glass into the beer and drink it fast.

ABOUT THE FILM: A drifter returns home to a small Canadian town to settle an old debt with a grizzled bartender, but the night’s events soon spin into a tale of shocking violence and mistaken identity.

QUEEN OF HEARTS: AUDREY FLACK, The Queen of Hearts 

• 1 oz. gin
• 1 oz. strawberry lemonade
• ¼ oz. red wine-infused simple syrup
• Champagne

Shake with ice, strain into a champagne flute and top with champagne. 

ABOUT THE FILM: A moving and intimate portrait of the life and work of trailblazing artist Audrey Flack, one of the first women ever included in the famed Janson’s History of Art

TRUE WEST: THE JOHN SCOTT STORY, Old Fashioned 

• 1 sugar cube
• 2 to 3 dashes ​bitters
• 2 oz. ​Alberta whiskey
• Orange peel

Place sugar cube in old fashioned glass and saturate with bitters, muddle until dissolved. Fill the glass with ice cubes and add whiskey. Garnish with orange peel.

ABOUT THE FILM: A classic western documentary, meet the cowboy and Alberta legend behind some of Hollywood's biggest films.