DOTD For Monday, November 17, 2025

A Drink To Salute A Filmmaker You Wouldn't Want To Bet Against…

Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is the Casino Cocktail inspired by the birthday of legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, director of one of the quintessential mobster films, 1995’s Casino.

Martin Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in New York’s Queens borough. His family moved to the Little Italy neighborhood in Manhattan when he was very young, at a time when the Italian mob operated somewhat openly throughout New York City. After being kicked out of seminary school, Scorsese ended up earning bachelor’s degrees in English & film communications at New York University, and then entered NYU’s School of Film, where he earned his masters in film communications.

Scorsese made a couple of short films while in school, but in the 1970s Scorsese befriended the wunderkinds of the day: Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. Fatefully, De Palma introduced Scorsese to Robert De Niro. Their collaborations started in 1973 with the filming of Mean Streets, Scorsese’s first acclaimed mobster movie. Championed by critics, that film put Scorsese and De Niro on the map. Film critic Robert Ebert even predicted Scorsese would become the American version of legendary Italian film director Federico Fellini.

There are many Scorsese-De Niro collaborations that have become legendary. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Irishman, and, of course, our cocktail motivation for today: Casino.

Casino wasn’t exactly a happy family story. Rather, it’s an epic crime film about Sam “Ace” Rothstein (De Niro), a Jewish American gambling expert who runs a Las Vegas casino for the Chicago mob. The film was actually adapted from the real-life story written by crime journalist Nicholas Pileggi in the book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas.

Much action ensues, but once the FBI busts the crime ring, Sam is last seen as a sports handicapper, where he ends the film with the line “right back where I started.”

The same might be said of Mr. Scorsese. While he’s got a place in California, Martin Scorsese primarily lives in his New York City town house on the Upper East Side, his home since the 1980s. The property is famously filled with film memorabilia, a large movie collection, and a projection screen, where he can watch any film he wants, including one of his best mob films, Casino, the namesake for our Drink Of The Day today, the Casino Cocktail.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink: