You may have heard about a little film called The Witch that generated a lot of positive buzz out of Sundance last year and is now playing in theaters.  If not, here is the trailer:

The film is being billed as horror, and it does have some horror elements, but it will disappoint those in search of the standard Hollywood horror fare.  It is artfully creepy, tense and dread-full but light on gore and jump-scares.

The Witch is the story of a Puritan family in the New World that leaves a plantation that does not uphold the father’s lofty religious ideals to set up their own homestead on the edge of a wood, wherein we soon find out unspeakable evil lurks.  The film is an excellent depiction of the Puritan experience of witchcraft.  I urge you to seek it out.

I had the good fortune of seeing it at my favorite movie house, Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The Nitehawk serves gourmet food and drink, including craft cocktails, during the film and they do it in the most unobtrusive way, they are truly magicians.

One of my favorite aspects is that for each film they develop a themed dish and drink, and as you can see in the pic below, the drink for The Witch is named “Silver Cup” after a significant part of the plot.  An intriguing list of ingredients marrying New World rum and coconut with Old World violets and nutmeg – I’ll have one of those, please, don’t care if it is 11am on Saturday morning!

Another great thing about Nitehawk is that they put together a terrific pre-show of relevant old movie trailers and music to set the mood, and witches are a rich source of such material…

After the film, I asked the bartender for the recipe for the Silver Cup cocktail but was told they were not at liberty to divulge.  Sigh.  But, since I knew the ingredients from the menu (silver rum, Coco Lopez, lemon juice, creme de violette, Bittermens Tiki bitters & nutmeg), I figured I would try my hand at duplicating this tasty tipple.

Silver Cup
(adapted from the Nitehawk Cinema)

1.5 oz silver rum
.5 oz (1 Tbs) Coco Lopez cream of coconut
.5 oz  creme de violette
.5 oz lemon juice1 dash Bittermens Elemakule Tiki bitters
sprinkle of nutmeg to taste

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously.  Strain into a coupe and savor.  I tried it both by adding the nutmeg to the shaker and adding the nutmeg last over the top and I think they both have merit.  My drink at the theater arrived after the lights had gone down so I’m not sure how it was originally served.

This recipe produces a pretty unphotogenic cocktail, but one with a very unusual flavor.  Creamy from the coconut, tangy from the lemon it recalls tiki drinks, but with the weird addition of creme de violette, this is not your typical libation.  The creme de violette adds that semi-discordant, unsettling tone as well as lends the drink its bleak shade of grey which evokes both the color silver and the grim palette of the film.  Deliciously devilish.