We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andre Darlington. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andre below.
Andre, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
As a child of an immigrant mother and a classical musician father, a strong work ethic was instilled at an early age from both sides. It was always understood that being the best – or even just surviving – involved self-improvement as well as constant maintenance on the road to any goal or practice.
In my case, this ethic was not originally applied to writing, but instead a series of other ‘careers’ along the way; I initially set out to be a classical bass player, then a philosophy professor, and then I was an IT professional — as well as a few other paths along the forking path. Writing was always in the background because we had a very literary household. Looking back, it makes sense since writing is a practice and craft much like perfecting an instrument. It is something that requires a great deal of discipline and hard work.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am primarily known as the writer of cocktail books, books which stir together culture and mixed drinks. I have written on everything from Batman to John Wayne. This spring, I am releasing my twelfth book, my second with Turner Classic Movies. It is a book called Forbidden Cocktails, about pre-code Hollywood films – films from 1930-1934 when there was a censorship code but it was not enforced.
I started out as a restaurant reviewer, which morphed into being a wine writer, which then shifted into being a cocktail writer. I am perhaps the world’s only full-time cocktail book writer. The admittedly niche career has allowed me to sift through culture and history but also travel the world. In 2020, I became the first cocktail writer to circumnavigate the globe in a hundred years, following in the footsteps of Charles H. Baker. The story of that journey became a book called Booze Cruise: A Tour of the World’s Mixed Drinks. But I’ve also been able to curate popular American music in a bestselling series entitled Booze & Vinyl. There is now a second volume as well as A Booze & Vinyl Christmas. I’ve even been able to include my love of restaurants and cooking in a book called Bar Menu where I curated the world’s best bites to accompany mixed drinks. I’m on three different presses and have been publishing two books a year at a madcap pace. But I am addicted to the creative process of bringing books to life.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
My journey has included a shocking amount of adversity and I think everyone’s does who commits to big goals. Whether it is breaking in, breaking through the inevitable gate-keepers, or just keeping afloat financially, there is going to be sacrifice. On my book tours, there are always people who ask ‘How do I do something like what you do?’ (which looks on the outside like so much fun). If the conversation gets real, their eyes glaze over with the reality. You really will have to sacrifice to ‘make it,’ however that is defined. My entire life is centered around my book writing to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
In my case, I think adventurousness, fortitude, and resilience have been particularly important parts of the journey. Adventurousness because you have to be a little nuts to even try to be a writer or to do things like hop on a plane and set off around the world. I joke that there are two Andrés, one who signs me up for wild and sometimes scary adventures and then the home-body André who actually has to go out and execute the crazy plan. I am constantly terrorizing myself with things I thought I could not do. Fortitude because any career – especially ones that become public like being an author – can really get to be a grind of negativity. Behind every book are two or three that failed. Behind every big press hit are all the ones you didn’t get. You have to have the courage to keep going. For resilience, I will make a sports analogy because I hate sports analogies. I’ll make it quick: If you watch old Muhammad Ali fights you will see that he is not necessarily the better boxer. At some point in the fight he simply goes against the ropes and refuses to go down. People talk a lot about passion driving their careers, but everyone is passionate about something. The difference between all of them and how to be successful yourself, is to simply not go down. That can get ugly – I guarantee you it will be ugly – but it’s the resilience that gets you from thirty rejections to the one acceptance that changes your life.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I am always morphing, and I think to stay current and relevant and just to grow we all have to morph constantly. If you’re in a job, in a rut, you’re dying. If you’re stepping into something new, however small, it gives you hope, a sense of your future, and you are alive. I’ve been working on another career shift almost as long as I’ve been writing cocktail books. The challenge is how to do something new while working so intensely on what’s in front of you right now. But you have to. Every change feels like starting at the bottom of the hill and so many people get discouraged by that. But it really is an opportunity – to meet new faces, but also to transform yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.andredarlington.com
- Instagram: andredarlington
- Facebook: andredarlington
- Linkedin: andredarlington
- Twitter: andredarlington
- Other: www.boozeandvinyl.com
Image Credits
Headshot: André Rucker
