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Here are 3 movie-inspired cocktails to try on New Year’s Eve

Josh White, bar manager at Death & Co in Washington, D.C., serves a Manhattan, a cocktail made popular by the movie Some Like It Hot.
Meredith Rizzo for NPR
Josh White, bar manager at Death & Co in Washington, D.C., serves a Manhattan, a cocktail made popular by the movie Some Like It Hot.

Updated December 31, 2025 at 10:02 AM ET

The holidays are a time of celebration, connection, and the cherished ritual of gathering with family and friends to eat — and maybe have a few drinks. So, with the end of 2025 just days away, All Things Considered is thinking about cocktails made famous in movies and how they may inspire your New Year’s Eve drink choices — whether you’ll be concocting drinks at your home with friends or ordering a beverage at your favorite bar.

Death & Co in Washington, D.C. — an offshoot of the bar’s first location in New York City — is known for bespoke cocktails and a speakeasy design that’s made it a District go-to. NPR’s Tamara Keith visited the bar to chat with manager Josh White about the ingredients and recipes for some of the most iconic cocktails from popular movies. From a classic James Bond cocktail to the bar’s own signature mix, these are the drinks you might want to try this New Year’s Eve.

A White Russian cocktail, made popular by the movie The Big Lebowski, made at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025.
A White Russian cocktail, made popular by the movie The Big Lebowski, made at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025. Meredith Rizzo for NPR /

White Russian

Popularized by the 1998 Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski and its main character, The Dude, a White Russian is all about the heavy cream. Death & Co’s White offered this recipe for the iconic cocktail.

Ingredients:

– 1.5 oz Vodka

– 1 oz Kahlua

– 1 oz Heavy Cream

Method: Short shake / strain

Glass: Double Old Fashioned

Garnish: None

A Vesper martini, James Bond's drink of choice, made at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025.
A Vesper martini, James Bond’s drink of choice, made at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025. Meredith Rizzo for NPR /

Vesper

The Vesper martini is the preferred drink of James Bond throughout the spy movie franchise. But, unlike Bond, who always prefers his Vesper shaken, this version is stirred. Keith says ordering a Vesper shaken and not stirred is like ordering a steak from a chef well-done — you just don’t do it. Lucky for us, White is very experienced.

Ingredients:

– 1.5 oz London Dry Gin

– 0.75 oz Vodka

– 0.5 oz Cocchi Americano

Method: Stir / strain

Glass: Nick & Nora

Garnish: Lemon Twist

A cocktail called Death Becomes Her, named for the 1992 movie, is photographed at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025. Bar manager Josh White created the drink, which gets its green color from pistachio syrup.
A cocktail called Death Becomes Her, named for the 1992 movie, is photographed at Death & Co in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 23, 2025. Bar manager Josh White created the drink, which gets its green color from pistachio syrup. Meredith Rizzo for NPR /

Death Becomes Her

Named after the 1992 comedy starring Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep, the Death Becomes Her is White’s very own creation. The Death Becomes Her is as elegant, classy and green as the lead characters in the drink’s namesake movie. Varied and inventive ingredients go into this cocktail, providing a range of ways to make it sing. Follow the recipe below to give it a try.

Ingredients:

– 1 oz Ambrosia Almond & Rose Vodka

– 0.75 oz Fords Gin

– 0.25 oz Singani 63

– 1 oz Pistachio Orgeat

– 0.5 oz Pepita Orgeat

– 0.75 oz Lemon juice

– 0.5 oz Egg White

– Top w/ Soda Water

Method: Dry Shake / Shake / Strain / Top with soda

Glassware: Single Old Fashioned

Garnish: Rose Bud / Atomizer Rose Water

Copyright 2025 NPR

Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. In that time, she has chronicled the final years of the Obama administration, covered Hillary Clinton's failed bid for president from start to finish and thrown herself into documenting the Trump administration, from policy made by tweet to the president's COVID diagnosis and the insurrection. In the final year of the Trump administration and the first year of the Biden administration, she focused her reporting on the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association and is the association's president through July 15, 2023. In that role she leads the press corps in its interactions with the White House, advocating for press conferences and coordinating travel. Her mission for the year of her presidency is to demystify the White House beat for the public, in an effort to help restore trust in the press, an essential pillar of American democracy.

Previously Keith covered congress for NPR with an emphasis on House Republicans, the budget, taxes and the fiscal fights that dominated at the time.

Keith joined NPR in 2009 as a Business Reporter. In that role, she reported on topics spanning the business world, from covering the debt downgrade and debt ceiling crisis to the latest in policy debates, legal issues and technology trends. In early 2010, she was on the ground in Haiti covering the aftermath of the country's disastrous earthquake, and later she covered the oil spill in the Gulf. In 2011, Keith conceived of and reported "The Road Back To Work," a year-long series featuring the audio diaries of six people in St. Louis who began the year unemployed and searching for work.

Keith has deep roots in public radio and got her start in news by writing and voicing essays for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday as a teenager. While in college, she launched her career at NPR Member station KQED's California Report, where she covered agriculture, the environment, economic issues and state politics. She covered the 2004 presidential election for NPR Member station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and opened the state capital bureau for NPR Member station KPCC to cover then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2001, Keith began working on B-Side Radio, an hour-long public radio show and podcast that she co-founded, produced, hosted, edited and distributed for nine years, back before podcasts were cool.

Keith earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree at the UCB Graduate School of Journalism. Keith is also a member of the Bad News Babes, a media softball team that once a year competes against female members of Congress in the Congressional Women's Softball game. She serves on advisory boards for the University of California Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and the UC Berkeley J-School.

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