And the Drink Goes To… A Cocktail for Every Best Picture Nominee 2026
Babette PepajIt started, like a lot of good ideas do, with Neil Saavedra.
I was listening to The Fork Report on KFI AM 640 here in Los Angeles and Neil devoted an entire episode to the Oscars. The food, the people, the films. All of it. And somewhere in the middle of that I thought, we should do a cookbook. Recipes inspired by each Best Picture nominee. Something for our Film to Table series. Something to share with Neil.
Then he mentioned cocktails and I fell down a rabbit hole I have not climbed out of.
But honestly? This rabbit hole has been my favorite place to live for almost 20 years now.
It started back in 2007 when the team behind the film "Because I Said So" reached out to BakeSpace. We created recipes inspired by the film and something clicked immediately. Not just for us, for the fans. They were not just cooking. They were connecting to something they loved in a completely new way. That partnership opened a door and we walked right through it and have never looked back.
From there came some of my all-time favorite projects. ABC came knocking and we became the first to create recipes inspired by Grey's Anatomy. We worked on Pushing Daisies, which if you know that show, you know it was basically born for a food collaboration. A pie maker who brings the dead back to life? Come on. That one was pure joy from start to finish. And then there was Waitress, where we held a contest inviting people to name their own life's pie. The entries were so personal and funny and beautiful. People naming pies after heartbreaks and new babies and their grandmother's kitchens. That is what food does. That is what stories do. Put them together and something magic happens.
The Chef the Film cookbook brought in nearly 12,000 downloads. The Kids Are Alright with ABC? Over 244,000. Villa Heat, our Love Island USA cookbook? 734,000 downloads and counting. These are not just recipes. These are fans finding a new way into a story they love.
And that is really the whole point. Branded recipes connect fans to their favorite films and TV shows in a way that nothing else quite does. When you make a recipe inspired by something you love, you bring that world into your kitchen. You talk about it at the table. You text a friend the recipe with a reference only another fan would get. You are not just cooking. You are extending the story into your real life. And that conversation, the one that happens over dinner, is the most genuine brand conversation there is. Nobody is performing. Nobody is pitching. They are just in the kitchen, loving something together.
We still work with brands on these projects today. But sometimes we do not wait to be asked. Sometimes a friend who knows everything about K-dramas tells me that Queen of Tears is taking over the world and the food is practically a character in every scene and next thing you know there is a cookbook downloaded over 1,500 times by fans who just needed one more way to stay inside that story. Sometimes a friend stays at your place for the weekend and you binge Love Island USA together, laughing at the drama, and someone makes a joke about writing a cookbook for it and then you actually do. Because why not? The fans are there. The love is real. And the recipes write themselves.
That is exactly what happened here, just faster than usual. Because how is it already March? The Oscars are literally tonight and this whole thing came together in the best kind of whirlwind. Neil mentioned cocktails, I started thinking about each film, and before I knew it there were 10 drinks on the page and a free cookbook ready to go.
Here is what we made.
"And the Drink Goes to,... the Official Unofficial Cocktail Book of the 2026 Oscar Nominees" Ten Best Picture nominees. Ten cocktails. Each one named after the film, built to taste like the mood and the world of the story, with a description written in the voice of the film itself. No fancy bartending skills required. Just good taste, which you clearly have because you are here.
Free. Fan-made. Zero affiliation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Just movie lovers doing what we do best, which at BakeSpace has always meant gathering around food and talking about the things that matter to us. Feel free to use the BakeBot AI Assistant on each recipe to modify the recipes for you!
Let's get into it.
SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD.
🎬 SINNERS / Twin Bites
Start here. Ryan Coogler's film walked into awards season and shattered a record that had stood since 1950. 16 Oscar nominations, more than any film in history. It stars Michael B. Jordan playing twins, rebellious brothers who open a juke joint in the Jim Crow South on what should be the best night of their lives. Then something wicked shows up. It is a horror film and a blues film and a love letter to Black American culture all at once and it is extraordinary.
The cocktail is bourbon, blood orange liqueur, black cherry syrup, a smoked salt rim, and a dash of hot sauce. Two spirits in one glass, sweet and smoky and dangerous at the finish. The bite at the end is not accidental. Neither is the name.
🎬 HAMNET / The Mourning After
Chloé Zhao directs this one and if you have not seen it yet, clear your evening. Jessie Buckley plays Agnes Shakespeare, yes Shakespeare's wife, and the film follows her grief after losing their young son Hamnet to plague. It is the story of how that loss became Hamlet. It is gorgeous and raw and Buckley gives one of the best performances you will see this year or any year.
The Mourning After is gin, elderflower cordial, fresh lemon, a few drops of violet liqueur, and a dried lavender sprig. Pale, floral, quietly heartbreaking. The name is a pun and an emotional gut punch. Both things can be true.
[GET THE MOURNING AFTER RECIPE]
🎬 FRANKENSTEIN / The Reanimator
Guillermo del Toro directing Mary Shelley. Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi as the creature. Eight Oscar nominations. If that sentence does not make you want to watch it immediately, I do not know what to tell you. Del Toro makes gothic filmmaking feel like an art form unto itself and this one is lavish and beautiful and appropriately monstrous.
The cocktail is absinthe, blue curaçao, fresh lime, tonic, and an electric green maraschino cherry. Add dry ice if you have it. Actually, add dry ice regardless. Del Toro would want the fog. One sip and something stirs.
🎬 ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER / One Shot After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson wrote and directed this one, which means you are in for something dense and brilliant and a little bit exhausting in the best way. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a washed-up revolutionary trying to find his daughter while outrunning everything he used to believe in. Thirteen nominations. Jonny Greenwood doing the score. It is a lot. Magnificent, but a lot.
Mezcal, fresh lime, raw honey syrup, three dashes of Angostura bitters, coarse salt rim, charred lime wheel. Smoky, uncompromising, just barely sweetened. That is the film in a glass. The name practically wrote itself and we are not apologizing for it.
[GET THE ONE SHOT AFTER ANOTHER RECIPE]
🎬 SENTIMENTAL VALUE / Daddy Issues on the Rocks
Norway's Joachim Trier is one of the best filmmakers working today and this film proves it. Two sisters. An estranged father who was once a celebrated director. He comes back into their lives offering one of them a role in his new film, only to cast a more famous Hollywood actress instead. Old wounds. Complicated love. Nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture and a historic haul for a Norwegian film.
Aquavit, dry vermouth, a small splash of elderberry, one large hand-cut ice cube. Cold and clean and carrying something underneath that never fully thaws. No garnish. No performance. Just the truth, on the rocks. The name? Accurate.
[GET THE DADDY ISSUES ON THE ROCKS RECIPE]
🎬 MARTY SUPREME / The Match Point
Josh Safdie directing Timothée Chalamet as a table tennis prodigy consumed by competition. If that sounds like an odd premise, you have not seen a Safdie brothers film. They make you feel the stakes of everything, poker, gems, ping pong, it does not matter, until you are gripping the couch. This one is kinetic and sweaty and very, very New York.
Vodka, fresh grapefruit juice, grapefruit bitters, just enough simple syrup, served ice cold in a chilled coupe. No garnish because there is no time. The table is waiting. Drink it fast.
🎬 F1 / The Pit Stop
Brad Pitt plays a retired Formula One driver who comes back to mentor a younger racer. Joseph Kosinski directed Top Gun: Maverick so you already know the energy, glamorous, kinetic, built for a big screen and a great time. This movie is exactly as fun as it looks and sometimes that is exactly what you need.
Aperol, prosecco, fresh blood orange juice, a Campari float, rosemary sprig, wide wine glass, lots of ice. Italian, bittersweet, still fizzing. You mix it in under 23 seconds or it does not count. Those are the rules and yes, I made them up.
🎬 BUGONIA / Take Me to Your Bartender
Yorgos Lanthimos made a film where Emma Stone plays a pharmaceutical CEO kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien sent to destroy Earth. That is the movie. It is exactly as strange and perfect as it sounds and Lanthimos fans will not be surprised at all that it is also somehow hilarious.
Gin, Green Chartreuse, fresh cucumber juice, white grape juice, one single perfect green olive on a cocktail pick. Nothing else. Precise, pale, slightly unsettling, completely correct. You will either get it immediately or find it deeply confusing. Both responses are valid.
[GET THE TAKE ME TO YOUR BARTENDER RECIPE]
🎬 THE SECRET AGENT / License to Spill
Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers a grindhouse political thriller set in São Paulo with Wagner Moura doing some of the best work of his career. It blends biting social commentary with pulpy genre filmmaking in a way that is completely its own thing. Critics have been obsessed with this one all season and it absolutely deserves its nomination.
Cachaça, fresh lime, raw brown sugar muddled right in the glass, dark rum float, crushed ice, dried chili and salt rim. A caipirinha's more dangerous cousin, rougher, darker, a little heat at the edge. License to Spill is a James Bond pun AND a bartending instruction. That is what we call a two-for-one. Saúde.
[GET THE LICENSE TO SPILL RECIPE]
🎬 TRAIN DREAMS / The Last Spike
Save this one for last. Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams follows one man's life unfolding across the vast, wild landscape of early 20th century America, logging camps, railroad work, loss, survival, beauty. Joel Edgerton carries the whole thing with quiet brilliance. It is a small film with a mythic feeling and it will stay with you long after it ends.
American rye whiskey, Bénédictine, two dashes of Angostura bitters, orange peel expressed and dropped in. Served neat. No ice. No hurry. This is the one you sip slowly at the end of the night when the winners have been announced and the credits are rolling and you are still thinking about all of it.
That is all 10. Now go make one, find your spot on the couch, and enjoy the show.
And Neil, if you are reading this, this one is for you. Thanks for the rabbit hole. 🐇
If you mix something up tonight, share it with the BakeSpace community by tagging us on Instagram. I want to see your foggy Reanimators and your lone olive Bugonias and anyone who actually attempts the dry ice situation on a Sunday night. You are my people.
Envelope, please. 🍸
P.s. if you need any help tonight (or any night), check out BakeSpace.com or try our new BakeBot.ai (our New AI Kitchen Assistant).
