3 Star Wars Cocktails: Try Them Now, You Shall

Recipe by Karen Grill, Sassafras Saloon, Los Angeles

“This one is really cool,” says Rahad Coulter-Stevenson, bartender and manager at Thirsty Crow, a member of the 1933 Group of bars, including Sassafras Saloon, where this drink is served. “In the first movie, Luke [Skywalker]’s family he’s living with, his aunt and uncle, call him in for breakfast. She pours a blue liquid, and they’re all drinking. As a kid, I always wondered what they were drinking and what it tasted like. So [Karen] re-created the blue milk. It’s kind of like a blue piña colada—what could be wrong with that?”

Recipe by Sol Trece, La Cuevita, Highland Park, CA

“The Kessel Run is a smuggler’s route. This info isn’t even in the movie, but an illegal substance, Glitterstim, a spice, comes from the planet Kessel. Smugglers have to be crafty and smuggle the spice out,” says Rahad Coulter-Stevenson, bartender and manager at Thirsty Crow, a member of the 1933 Group of bars, including La Cuevita, where this drink is served. A lot of the ships don’t make it. In the first movie, Han Solo brags about making the Kessel Run. The drink is a take on an Aviation cocktail, which is a gin-based cocktail. Both planes and starships are flying devices, so it’s a pilot’s cocktail. With mezcal.”

Recipe by Rahad Coulter-Stevenson, Thirsty Crow, Silver Lake, CA

“My favorite of the original trilogy is The Empire Strikes Back,” says Rahad Coulter-Stevenson, bartender and manager at Thirsty Crow, a member of the 1933 Group of bars. “That movie starts in the world of the planet Hoth. Since we’re going into winter, I was thinking about that as inspiration. There’s a creature in that world called the Wampa, and that inspired the punch. The Wampa actually punches Luke Skywalker, so it has a double meaning.”