Is there anything better than sitting back to watch your favourite movie or TV show with a cold glass of beer, oversized glass of wine, or tasty cocktail in your hand? Opinions differ. But what if you could be drinking those very shows or movies? This golden age of nerd entertainment has begat a golden age of nerd entertainment-based alcoholic beverages, and here’s what’s available for your (responsible) drinking pleasure right now.
Game of Thrones
Let’s begin with Game of Thrones, HBO’s hit fantasy which licensed so many official beers, wines, and liquors if you drank them all you might get hammered enough to believe the final season was good. While Brewery Ommegang’s line of 15 — yes, 15 — GoT beers is dunzo, the Danish brewery Mikkeler currently offers Night King DIPA, Castle Black Stout, and Ghost Visions Lager to select markets. GameofThronesWines.com still sells a branded 2018 California chardonnay, but Scotch lovers still have a plethora of options: You can still find the Johnnie Walker’s A Song of Ice, A Song of Fire, and White Walker limited editions, as well as remaining bottles of Lagavulin’s House Lannister single malt, Singleton’s House Tully, Cardhu’s House Targaryen, and more.
The Princess Bride
Celebrate the love of Westley and Buttercup — or your love of the classic 1987 fairy tale film — with a 2020 bottle of As You Wish Pinot Grigio. According to the bottlers at Personal Wine, it tastes of marigold, peach, and nectarine. But if you’d rather party with bad boys, pick up a bottle of the “bold, jammy, velvety” Inconceivable Cabernet Sauvignon. Both are $US49 ($68).
Star Trek
Do Trek fans have more to drink about than Star Wars fans? I don’t think so, but Trekkies certainly have more options. While there have been many different licensed alcoholic offerings over the years, they’ve been popular enough that StarTrekWines.com exists and sells six different brands, all of which have some connection to the fiction. These include:
- United Federation of Planets Special Reserve Andorian Blue Chardonnay (2,161 individually numbered bottles)
- Cardassian Kanar Red Blend (individually numbered shipments)
- United Federation of Planets Sauvignon Blanc (individually numbered bottles)
- United Federation of Planets Old Vine Zinfandel
- Chateau Picard Cru Bordeaux (bottled at the ACTUAL Chateau Picard in France)
- Klingon Bloodwine Cabernet Sauvignon (Waxed Dipped Collectors Edition)
Alas, at the moment, you’ll have to keep your Trek love in your wine glasses. Shmaltz Brewing — which used to offer beers themed to the original series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine — has closed, and you’ll have to track down remaining bottles of Silver Screen Bottling’s James T. Kirk Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Montgomery Scott Scotch, and the TNG-inspired Ten-Forward Vodka yourself.
Stranger Things
Although it’s inspired by Chief Hopper, David Harbour’s beloved police chief/zaddy from Stranger Things, this specialty beer from Short’s Brewing Company isn’t the watered-down American swill he normally guzzles down. Instead, it’s a double IPA — because of Hopper, you see — in which “dank aromas of pine, grapefruit, pineapple, and mango are accompanied by just a hint of malt.” Better than Schlitz and Marlboros!
Outlander
OK, this Scotch doesn’t have Outlander technically on the bottle, but what could be more official than a whiskey made by star Sam Heughan himself? The heartthrob who plays Jamie Fraser created a premium blended Scotch called the Sassenach (meaning “foreigner,” Jamie’s pet name for his time-travelling love Claire) which has won an impressive number of awards around the world. If you find the often-sold-out whiskey, be ready to buy it quick and pay $US100 ($139). But Heughan’s Sassenach tequila is also currently up for grabs.
The Walking Dead
While Terrapin’s official Walking Dead beers seem to have gone the way of a zombie with an axe in its head, you can still pour a glass of chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, or a Blood Red Blend while you watch the final season, courtesy of Treasury Wine Estates, and available here. If you want to get fancier, you could also uncork a bottle of the extra-special Daryl Dixon Cab or Negan Blood Red, and by “extra-special” I do mean “they have fancier labels.”
If you need something stronger, 1) I don’t blame you, and 2) the Sexton distillery has created two Irish whiskeys in honour of TWD’s 11th season, with a third scheduled to be released this fall with the show’s final eight episodes. But if you can’t track those down or can’t wait, Diageo partnered with Skybound, the publisher of the original Walking Dead comic, to produce The Walking Dead Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey if you like your TWD straight from the source, so to speak.
Monty Python
If should come as no surprise that the remaining members of Monty Python had no qualms about licensing out their name, and that includes to North Yorkshire, England’s Black Sheep Brewery. As such, you can drink yourself silly watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus with the “silly” IPA of the same name, or Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the astutely named Monty Python’s Holy Grail, a “British Pale Ale tempered over burning witches.” My personal favourite movie and pairing, however, is Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the beer they call… Brian. Brian the beer. He’s a “very naughty pale ale” and I hope to drink him if I ever make it ‘cross the pond.
Star Wars
Alas, if you want to get drunk via Star Wars, you’ll actually have to travel to a galaxy far, far away — Disneyland or Disney World — to do so. At Galaxy’s Edge, you’re able to purchase a variety of trademarked alcoholic beverages at Oga’s Cantina including White Wampa Ale, Bad Motivator IPA, Spice Runner hard cider, Andrean White wine, the Bloody Rancor (a Bloody Mary), Fuzzy Tauntaun (fuzzy navel), Yub Nub (rum punch), Outer Rim (a margarita in a glass rimmed with black salt), and many more.
Evil Dead
There’s no way AleSmith’s Evil Dead Red Ale is official, but it gets full credits for having “ an intense aroma of pine and citrus from an abundance of American hops,” which is a perfect evocation of the extremely cursed cabin in the woods from the films. Besides, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell seem like pretty chill dudes.
Lord of the Rings
One does not simply walk into Mordor, and one doesn’t easily get their hands on officially licensed alcoholic Lord of the Rings beverages in the year 2022 either. Right now, the only wine is the Middle-earth Pinot Noir from the — where else? — New Zealand-based Nelson. The beer situation is even more dire, unless you’re eager to try Moylan Brewery’s discontinued Lord of the Rings: Orc Piss Stout, which still has a few bottles left on Drizly (and I would be lying if I said I didn’t suspect that Moylan hadn’t necessarily gone through all the necessary legal channels to name an LotR-branded beer as piss).
Spaceballs
Spaceballs: the Beer? Spaceballs: the Beer! I’m just going to assume the franchise that gave us Spaceballs: the Lunchbox and Spaceballs: the Flamethrower also approved wholeheartedly of making a few bucks off Original Pattern Company’s aptly titled brew, and maybe Common Space Brewery’s Something, Something, Spaceballs, too, if only because the two beers are both black ales — aka Schwarzbier. This is awesome.
The Handmaid’s Tale
While the official wines commemorating the misogynist dystopian series The Handmaid’s Tale are no longer available — and if fact, stopped being available about 30 minutes after they were first announced, because of the (very justified) outcry their existence provoked — they’re worth being dishonorably mentioned because, I mean, come on. If you’re wondering who thought this was a good idea, that would be Lot18 (and Hulu, of course), who proudly described wine based on the main character as “Offred must rely on the one weapon she has left to stay in control — her feminine wiles. This French Pinot Noir is similarly seductive, its dark berry fruit and cassis aromatics so beguiling it seems almost forbidden to taste. But it’s useless to resist the wine’s smooth and appealingly earthy profile, so you may as well give in” as if it was somehow OK. It wasn’t!