Drinks May Finally Be Getting Their The Bear Moment

It’s rare that drinks culture makes its way on-screen beyond the superficial—perhaps a bar as a backdrop for a date or a breakup, or a character getting too drunk as a plot point. This fall, though, I’m looking forward to checking out two new drinks-related shows and hearing what you think about them: Black Rabbit and House of Guinness, both on Netflix. 

As my colleagues at Eater have seen with The Bear, a spotlight on the industry can have a lasting influence, which is sometimes fun (my friend’s dad says he recently “got into restaurants”—whatever that means—because of the show), and other times a little charged, exposing the cracks and toxicity behind the scenes. Last year, Baby Reindeer, a Netflix show about a bartender being stalked by a customer, elucidated something that civilians (those outside the industry, in bartender speak) don’t always understand. It showed, plainly, that “bartending is an office that makes its holder a captive audience in a way that few other jobs do,” Rosie Schaap wrote for Punch.

Here’s a preview of what’s to come:

House of Guinness: House of Guinness, from the creator of Peaky Blinders, follows four adult children who, in the wake of their father’s death, inherit the Guinness brewery and all of the sociopolitical challenges that come with it. This, from what I can tell, sounds a little like if Succession were set in 1860s Dublin and revolved around one of the world’s most famous beer companies. 

Black Rabbit: In this new drama, Jude Law plays the owner of a Manhattan restaurant that also has a VIP cocktail lounge and is on the verge of its big break. But when his brother (Jason Bateman) comes to town, so does trouble. Honestly, it sounds a little like The Bear if it were set in New York and more focused on nightlife.

Relatedly: Black Rabbit is also the name of a pub in Brooklyn—no official relation to the show. I asked Kent Lanier, the bar’s owner, what he thinks of the forthcoming series. “It’s all gravy,” he says. “If Jude Law and Jason Bateman want to come in, I’ll buy them a drink.”

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