Titanic

Here’s a little history lesson for you. Nearly 18 years ago, in December of 1997, an enormous box office behemoth sailed into movie theaters. Yes that’s right, Titanic (DVD/Download) will soon be an entire adult person old. This makes me feel as geriatric as Gloria Stuart on the bow of that ship. I can still remember the buzz at the lunch table in middle school. Girls making plans to see it at least 5 times over the Christmas holidays, while simultaneously plotting their future lives as Mrs. Leonardo DiCaprio. It was madness. Eighteen years later, I still find the movie entertaining, but I also appreciate a good Titanic parody as much as the next person. I mean, could anybody ever keep a straight face when Billy Zane was onscreen?

As the two leads in the film, Jack and Rose, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet share a unique onscreen chemistry. I witnessed it again in the fabulously underrated film Revolutionary Road, and it makes me wish they’d co-star more often (it’s my secret fantasy that Leo is madly in love with Kate in real life, yet he’s never been able to win her heart. Thus he overcompensates with yachts and supermodels). Titanic is really just Romeo and Juliet meets historical tragedy, with a little saucy Kathy Bates thrown in for good measure. I can’t attest to historical accuracies or inaccuracies, but if the point of the movie is to keep me entertained for 3+ hours, mission accomplished Mr. Cameron.

My cocktail this week is a bit of a no-brainer. In celebrating that great cinematic love story between Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater (seriously, who came up with that name?), while watching Titanic I recommend drinking a classic Jack Rose.*

Jack Rose

4 oz Applejack

2 oz Lemon Juice

1 oz Grenedine

Lime twist (for garnish)

Shake ingredients over ice until chilled, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime twist.

*Fun drinking game:  take a drink every time someone says the name Rose.  You’ll be hammered within the first hour.  Then you’ll wonder why people keep saying her name, even when she’s the only other person in the room.

My grandmother used to tell us stories of how she and her girlfriends cut school and drove for hours to go see Gone With the Wind when it was released. That desperation is the only thing I can compare Christmas of 1997 to. We’ll see if Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes a similar cultural touchstone in the coming weeks. No matter what your feelings are on the schmaltzy Hollywood blockbuster that is Titanic, no one can deny that it brought millions of people together in cinematic viewership. In a world where moviegoing is slowly dying off in favor of at-home options, it’s nice to think about a time when everybody just shut up, put their real lives aside for 3 hours, and got lost together in a little Hollywood magic. Cheers!