This week, playwright Dusty Wilson joins us once again to keep the rain train a’rolling with 80s action-thriller Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott! One of the most non-Michael Mann encapsulations of 80s gritty cheese, Black Rain follows hard-nosed Dirty Harry type Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) as he tries to catch a yakuza murderer who slips from his grasp during a prisoner exchange to Osaka, Japan. The movie’s full of astounding cinematography, amusingly reductive depictions of Japanese culture, and a scene where Andy Garcia shows a Japanese detective how to do karaoke right. Check it out along with our custom cocktail and drinking rules!
(Thanks to our sponsor Cards Against Humanity as part of the Chicago Podcast Coop!)
LISTEN HERE OR DOWNLOAD:
THIS EPISODE’S DRINK: Black and Rainy
A variant on the Dark and Stormy, we threw a little Japanese flavor in there with lychee juice and lemongrass, with a bit of blackberry to befit the film’s title.
3 parts Gosling’s black rum
3 parts lychee drink
5-6 blackberries
½ part lime juice
1 part ginger beer*
*We made our own ginger syrup by combining finely-chopped ginger, English cucumber, brown sugar, honey, mint and red chili in water and boiling that down to a syrup. Mix 1 part of that to 3 parts club soda, and you’ve got your own homemade ginger beer! Or you can just buy a bottle of your own.
Muddle blackberries at the bottom of a cocktail shaker, then add the rum, lychee, and lime juice. Add ice and shake vigorously till combined. Strain into a rocks glass, top with ginger beer, and garnish with lime wheel and lemongrass leaves.
DRINKING RULES FOR BLACK RAIN:
- Whenever Andy Garcia says ‘babe’
- Every time someone tells Michael Douglas to drop the case or stop whatever he is doing
- Each time you see a neon sign in Japan
FINISH YOUR DRINK WHEN:
Yakuza boss Sugai says, “Black rain. You made the rain black.”
Join us next week as we wrap up April Showers by paying respects to the Man in Purple with the Prince musical Purple Rain!
