Paul Feig favors the frozen-gin-shaker-and-iceless method.

Paul Feig Knows a Good Martini

The filmmaker behind Freaks and Geeks and Bridesmaids has re-invented himself as a cocktail connoisseur with a viral pandemic-drink-tutorial series, his own brand of gin, and, now, a book

By Jim Kelly

You may know Paul Feig as the creator of the cult-classic TV series Freaks and Geeks. Or you may know him as the director of a string of Melissa McCarthy hits, including Bridesmaids and the all-female remake of Ghostbusters. You may even know him as Mr. Eugene Pool, the science teacher on the first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. But to his friends, he is famously known as a cocktail maestro, an avocation he put to good use during the Great Pandemic when he created, on Instagram, 100 cocktails over 100 days to raise money for coronavirus charities.

Feig has put those recipes in his new book, Cocktail Time!, but there is so much more in this beautifully produced volume than just what to do with that bottle of curaçao you bought years ago at a duty-free shop because you liked its blue color. Cocktail Time! is part autobiography, part primer on how to live a gracious and fun life, and just about the most slyly amusing book you will read this year.