One Spirit After Another: What the Characters of One Battle After Another are Drinking Between Takes

The hype for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new Leonardo DiCaprio starring film One Battle After Another is as real as a bourbon-heads thirst for Old Rip Van Winkle. At $140M, it’s Anderson’s biggest budget ever and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive.

We’re feeling it too. After seeing it opening, we can hardly contain our enthusiasm. At Flaviar, we believe good movies and good spirits go together. One thing leads to another, one spirit after another. The characters in Anderson’s movies are rich and complex, much like our spirits, so what better way to geek out over his new movie than to fancast their preferred drinks?

We dive into what we think each character is drinking below - and why a French 75 is the perfect cocktail to enjoy while dissecting the movie post-theatre.

Without spoiling anything, what we know is this:

• It is loosely based on the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland,about an aging counter-culture revolutionary whose past comes back to haunt him. The trailers have him looking strung out and screaming “Viva La Revolucion!”

• It was filmed with VistaVision cameras, a rare 35mm variant that allows for higher resolution.

• There is a car chase that, according to Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times, ‘evokes Mad Max’.

• DiCaprio and Del Toro drive the cars themselves during the sequence.

• The revolutionary group Dicaprio’s character is a part of is called the French 75.

• A French 75 is a classic cocktail made with gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar.

During a recent post-screening conversation between the two directors, Steven Spielberg told Paul Thomas Anderson it was an “insane movie”, with his “favorite Sean Penn performance” and “more action in the first hour of this than every other film you’ve ever directed put together”. All this from the man celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of directing Jaws this year speaks volumes. And he’s not the only one singing its praises. DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro, and newcomer Chase 

Infiniti have all been lauded in early impressions of the film. People are saying that Sean Penn, a man with two Best Actor Oscars already, has turned in a career-defining performance. What’s more defining than two Oscars? A third? Warner Bros is reportedly planning the film's awards campaign already. It will likely be incredibly fruitful. 

If DiCaprio’s group is called the French 75 (named after the same artillery gun the cocktail is) then what are they drinking? All we can do is speculate, but at this point we’ll do anything to keep these movie in our heads. 

In the movie, Bob Ferguson is living off the grid and has a paranoid, unkempt, desperate energy; which doesn’t exactly scream someone drinking a champagne cocktail to us. If anything, it looks like he’s drinking moonshine he made himself or stole off an Ole Smokey Moonshine truck. We’re thinking he’s partial to the apple pie. Either way, he’s sipping it straight out of the mason jar. Hey, we’ve all been there. 

In the movie, Penn appears crew cut and straightlaced, looking to arrest DiCaprio and his revolutionary group. He means business and he probably drinks business too. We’re getting a heavily peated scotch vibe from his uniform. Macallan, or the  Glenlivet 39 Year Old 1969 Cellar Collection. Something as old as his military career.

Perfidia is reportedly the character everyone else bows down to. Fiery, on the run, machine gun toting; she looks like someone who would enjoy a fine cognac to us. Taylor herself partnered with Hennessy in 2024, but for Perfidia we’re imagining something a bit more grand. The Louis XIII Magnum from Rémy Martin perhaps? It’s about as big as the rocket launcher she fires off in the trailer. 

Again a celebrity endorsement comes into play. Benicio is an investor in the mezcal Perro Verde so we’re assuming he’s drinking as much of it as possible. For a sensei of such fine taste, we’ll guess he goes for the Tobasiche, harvested in the wild from a rare agave variety that takes 17 years to mature. You don’t see a lot of celebrity mezcals making tobasiche, but as DiCaprio’s sensei, he must know what he’s doing. 

Regina Hall! The woman that she is, a self-described Irish whiskey lover, is playing the level-headed Deandra, a French 75 member who recently came out of hiding. She doesn’t get a lot of coverage in the trailer but we’re counting on her being as great as she always is. What kind of whiskey does a revolutionary in hiding savor over the years? Why not a bottle of triple distilled Lost Irish? With casks coming from six continents, it’s as worldly as she needed to be to keep the feds off her back. 

Look, she’s the the baby in the family. Maybe she’d like to take a look at our great alcohol-free spirit selection. 

Want to try your hand at making the cocktail that shares its name with DiCaprio’s revolutionary group? Our classic French 75 recipe makes for the perfect before or after-show cocktail.

You’ll need:

• 1 oz (30 ml) gin (or cognac, if you’d like a warmer version that’s closer to the drink’s WW1’s origins)
  
  

• 1/2 oz (15 ml) fresh lemon juice
  
  

• 1/2 oz (15 ml) simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water)
  
  

• 3 oz (90 ml) Champagne (or any good-quality dry sparkling wine)
  
  

• Ice
  
  

• Lemon twist, for garnish

What you’ll do:

1. In a cocktail shaker, combine gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup with ice. Shake until chilled.
   
   

2. Strain into a chilled champagne flute or coupe glass.
   
   

3. Gently top with Champagne.
   
   

4. Express a lemon twist over the drink (optional) and drop it in.

This is an easy-to-make but still sophisticated-to-drink classic cocktail that may or may not pair perfectly with the vibe of One Battle After Another. PTA films are generally full of surprising choices, we’re sure this will be no exception. What we do know is that it will inspire conversation. Speaking with the New York Times about the movie, Regina Hall said, “What I enjoy about a film like this is that people might walk away and talk about it.” So, if the post-movie discussion warrants cocktails, go grab the shaker. Otherwise, there’s always moonshine.