The Bombay Canteen’s 3rd Edition of the Canteen Cocktail Menu is a guidebook to the talkies of Bombay. Simin Patel, Bombay’s biggest fan and expert, dusted off the six chosen talkies with stories of grandeur and glamour that once surrounded these architectural wonders. While her writing was the showstopper, I got to add in some masala of my own with old-school advertisements, cocktail posters, maps, introductions, and curtain calls which brought the guidebook to life.

 

For research, we flipped through many old guidebooks of Bombay that traced the evolution of the city. In my writing, I tried to mirror the curt but whimsical style that most of these guidebooks were written in. This cocktail menu is a treat for the history hunks, and a party for the dedicated drunks!