He's always viewed cocktails as the key to the glamorous adult world – in real life and his famously daring films. Here are the director's favourite cocktail spots, from Capri to Burbank.

The Specialist

(Credit: Ryan Silver)

Paul Feig is the award-winning director of Bridesmaids, Last Christmas, A Simple Favor and The Heat, as well as the creator of the beloved television series Freaks and Geeks. He is the author of Cocktail Time! The Ultimate Guide to Grown-Up Fun (2022).

Paul Feig – the perennially well-dressed director of Bridesmaids (2011) and A Simple Favor (2018) – has become almost as well-known for his love of cocktails as he is for his films.

"Try to find one of my movies where somebody's not drinking a martini," he jokes.

The BBC caught up with Feig as he prepared for the launch of Another Simple Favor, premiering 1 May on Amazon Prime Video. The film sees the return of Blake Lively's murderous, martini-swilling Emily and Anna Kendrick's prim Stephanie for more sensual backstabbing – this time against the opulent backdrop of Capri's Grand Hotel Quisisana.

Not so incidentally, the Grand Hotel Quisisana is also home to one of Feig's favourite cocktail bars.

But for Feig, beautiful cocktails are more than a silent film character; they are the "greatest perks" of the adult world.

"I didn't like the power dynamics of being a kid," explains Feig. "I've always been obsessed with the culture of cocktails; the look of cocktails, the glassware, the mixology. It is all, to me, so beautiful."

Feig believes that cocktails should always be a special moment, even if partaking at home. "You should be wearing the right thing and have the right glass," he says. "So much stuff in our culture now is for kids or trying to stay young which is fine. But being an adult is awesome. It's got its hard parts. That's why you need cocktails."

And when he's jet-setting, Feig keeps the special occasion going, seeking out the world's top cocktail bars.

"I do a little research," he says. "I always want to find the nicest one. I have an obsession with hotel bars... but I'll do my research and ask people; find out what they recommend as far as what I'm looking for."

And Feig is looking for something specific.

"It has to be very beautiful," he says. "Beautiful wood and beautiful appointments; the way they display the bottles; bartenders who are absolute professionals. I look for a good aesthetic experience with knowledgeable bartenders."

Having an adult-style tipple, he notes, can also get you a front-row seat to a new city's culture. "Having a drink definitely tends to loosen me up," he says. "I think it connects you with the group of people that might lead you to other things that you are looking for; nice restaurants and cool places to shop. I love finding the cool places to shop. I love all that stuff."

Here are Feig's favourite very beautiful, very grown-up cocktail bars around the world.

Feig's favourite cocktail on-and-off screen is forever the martini – so he holds his bartenders to a high standard. "Honestly, I'm very prejudiced about that," he admits. "If they go 'gin or vodka?' I'm always, like, 'I said a martini, I didn't say a vodka martini.' It's so fluid now with people having vodka or gin martinis. But I'm a purist. I do hold that against a bartender occasionally."

A not-so-simple occasion

"There's a pageantry to it, or there should be, you know," says Feig. "My one rule is: never drink out of plastic. I refuse. If I go to some event and they have wine and it's in a plastic cup, I'm like, 'No, I'll just wait.' Then you're just drinking to get drunk, and that holds no appeal to me whatsoever."

But Feig never has cause to judge when he visits the historic DUKES Bar, located in London's upscale St James's neighbourhood.

"It's a very small bar. It looks like grandma's living room," he says of the cosy space outfitted with heavy club chairs; opened in 1908. "I wouldn't be surprised to see people from Parliament walk in there. It's got that vibe. They have a dress code, which I love. And it's where Ian Fleming discovered the martini, supposedly. So, it's got a little James Bond DNA on top of it."

For Feig, what truly makes the DUKES experience is the personable and highly knowledgeable staff – led by Alessandro Palazzi, who Feig calls his "cocktail hero" and a "really close friend".

"What they specialise in is martinis that don't touch ice, so they're the coldest martinis you can get," says Feig. "They bring out the frozen glasses, the frozen bottle of gin. They take vermouth – which is not frozen – but they put it into the glass, swirl it around just to coat the edges, and then they dump it out on the floor, so you just have the very thin coat. Then right from the frozen bottle, they pour in the gin. So it's freezing cold; there's no excuse for [a] martini that's not ice-cold."

Feig notes........

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