Ultraviolence and Beethoven’s Ninth: Cocktails inspired by Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange

Young Malcom McDowell, under the direction of Stanley Kubrick who adapted the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange written by Anthony Burgess delivered a dystopian crime film that vividly captured the disturbing satire painted in the novel.  This movie makes you sick over the indifferently haughty way Alex (Malcom McDowell) and his band of assailants commit their crimes.  Then the table is turned as the justice system assails Alex into a mind-controlled test subject calling it reformation.  The result leaves you conflicted and a bit wary in the end and can be the source of an ethics debate. Perhaps over cocktails?  We have two cocktails inspired by the movie A Clockwork Orange (recipe below, video above).  A notable mention regarding the book and the film is that Anthony Burgess cleverly used an evolved language to posture a setting in the future and while your mind is occupied by translation which eases digesting the horrendous acts committed by those all-around in the film. 

Our first cocktail is "The Alex", of course inspired by the character cleverly played by Malcom McDowell.  In A Clockwork Orange, it is clear that the one and seemingly only thing that Alex holds dear is his love for the music of Ludwig Von Beethoven.  So, we've created a sort of Aperol Spritz which we think Beethoven and Alex would have loved.  German Riesling is the center of this cocktail as it was Beethoven's drink of choice and the Ginger Beer highlights the spice and floral flavors in the German Riesling.  Aperol, a bitter liqueur, provides the vibrant orange color we had to have in a Clockwork Orange cocktail (the bitterness that Alex is constantly covering up with vice and violence) and it helps carry the flavors from the front of the palate towards the back.  Build this, like Alex would directly into a wine goblet, much like the glass given to Alex in the tense scene when Frank Alexander encourages Alex to "Try the Wine!" .  Garnish with a fat orange wheel to keep the ice down and add orange bitters on top to enhance the orange scent.  All of this results in a long tasting refreshing cocktail, just like the refreshment Alex would feel after listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  Alex: "Oh bliss!  Bliss and heaven!  Oh it was gorgeousness and goergeousity made flesh.  It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now.  As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!".  

Our second cocktail "Like Clockwork" is inspired by the cocktail Alex and his droogs would drink to sharpen up for his second-to-Beethoven passion, and that, was violence.  Spiked milk called "Milk-Plus" from the Korova Milk Bar was the cocktail to have for these dystopian youths.  Alex as the narrator, described it as a drink that "...would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence".  While there are some spirits that have the reputation for fueling violence, we did not want to put that in our cocktails, nor encourage the stereotypes.  We chose the refreshing flavors of peppermint, from Rumple Minze, and a touch of sweet orange , from Cointreau, flavors and scents which are often used by runners and athletes to liven up the mind and body in preparation for athletic trials.  These flavors set in the background of half and half eases the sharpness of the peppermint and alcohol making it a dangerously easy cocktail to drink cold in a well chilled, tall Collins glass sans the ice.  We had fun with the garnish by using a half slice of orange, dipped in black glitter and secured with a ball-end cocktail pick to look like the Clockwork Orange eye in the Surrealistic Pop-Art style of A Clockwork Orange movie posters.