On a good day, it’s the place where deals are made, secret alliances are forged and beings from a thousand worlds seek to disappear into anonymity—“No questions asked,” remember? And it all happens over drinks. When relations do go south—as they did on the day in question—it’s despite the imbibing, not because of it.
The Cantina may not always advance the case for social drinking occasions—thanks, Han—but the famous interstellar public house accomplished in a few quick wide, medium, and close-up shots what it often takes franchises multiple movies to establish: that the Star Wars universe was huge and there were millions of stories waiting to be told. Up until that point in the film, we were introduced to some of the galaxy’s exotic species in a very gradual, rationed manner. We met the Jawas and then the Tusken Raiders, but not until we got to Mos Eisley did we behold the vastness of the galaxy.
All the more remarkable is the fact that George Lucas accomplished that with a reported budget of around eleven million dollars. Sure, that’s in mid-1970s dollars, but if you adjusted it for inflation, it’d still be only about forty-five million. That is the average price of an effects-free comedic film, half of which would be the salary of the A-list star.
Scenes from Jabba’s palace. Photo credit: Jeff Cioletti (special thanks to Beeline Creative)
That’s the magic of a bar. In the real world, it’s like life’s great establishing shot, offering a glimpse at a wide cross-section of humanity in such a confined space. Why do you think Yelp reviews always tout “great people-watching” at different venues? (Though, why is people-watching even a thing?)
Maz Kenata’s thousand-year-old watering hole in The Force Awakens and the Canto Bight casino in The Last Jedi also serve this purpose, though we don’t feel their impact as much as we did when we first heard the first notes of John Williams’s jazzy cantina band number (we later learn that seven-member musical combo was Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes—“Fiery” Figrin D’an and his cohorts were members of the Bith race).
“There’s always that collective shot, that collective starting point,” observes Atlanta-based Star Wars fan photographer and social media consultant Brett Ferencz. “Whether it’s Maz’s, the Cantina, or the Casino, there’s always these massive collections of aliens and strange characters. It’s a great representation of how vast the world is that they’re creating.”
Scotch Trooper
Ferencz’s name may not seem that familiar, but his Instagram alter ego is practically a household name in spirits-drinking circles: Scotch Trooper. His expertly composed images typically show Star Wars action figures interacting in some way with bottles, barrels, and glasses of whisk(e)y.
Scotch Trooper (Scotch_Trooper on Instagram) evolved from Ferencz’s earlier efforts to showcase his newfound passion for the spirit. Initially, he fell in love with the shapes of the bottles and the way the light played off of them. “I would use a lot of the empty bottles that I was holding on to that were just too pretty to throw away,” Ferencz recalls. “My wife said you should probably throw them away or do something with them—you’re just cluttering up the house.”
He then turned a lot of those bottles into steampunk-ish lamps and showed them off on Instagram. That’s when things started to take off. The number of followers quickly jumped to ten thousand. “That was 2015 or so, and that was my first step into the industry,” he says, “I started getting noticed by brand ambassadors.”
It was also around that time that he decided to more prominently integrate his other passion with the images: Star Wars. “I remember being five years old, wearing my Ewok shirt, and seeing Return of the Jedi with my neighbor,” Ferencz says of his near-lifelong fandom. “Every birthday party from then on had a Star Wars theme.”
He started incorporating standard 3¾-inch Hasbro figures in his posts but quickly realized that those figures lacked the proportions he wanted for his photos. He moved on to six-inch figures, which worked perfectly. “And that’s also when I brought in my Nikon camera and upgraded the photography,” Ferencz reveals. “And then it kind of blew up.” Impressed by his unique images, The Huffington Post did a profile on Scotch Trooper, and his following increased even further. Major whiskey brands began to partner with him to showcase their bottles in Ferencz’s Star Wars-themed scenes. One of his images included Princess Leia sitting down for a drink with Rogue One heroine Jyn Erso, with a giant bottle of Lagavulin looming in the background. Another featured a pair of original trilogy-era Stormtroopers, a bottle of Talisker Skye, and a skateboarding Yoda.
A couple years later, Ferencz hit a major speed bump in the spring of 2018 when the Distilled Spirits Council, the trade association representing America’s large distillers and importers, sent him a cease and desist order. The organization had no problem with his sponsored relationships with its member companies. However, the Council did object to his use of action figures. The trade group had received an anonymous, twenty-six-page complaint asserting that Scotch Trooper violated the Distilled Spirits Council’s advertising code, which states that the expected audience for a print, broadcast, or digital ad (which includes social media), must be at least 71.6 percent of legal drinking age. The Council’s Code Review Board determined that the use of action figures targets children.
Except it doesn’t. Ferencz posted the demographic analytics of his Instagram traffic and 90 percent of his followers (which have climbed past sixty-five thousand) are twenty-five and older. Less than 1 percent are teenagers between thirteen and seventeen years old, and 10 percent are eighteen to twenty-four years old. More than half of that last group are of legal drinking age. So, the total number of legal drinking age followers is probably closer to 95 percent—exceeding the Distilled Spirits Council’s minimum threshold by nearly twenty-four percentage points!
Naturally, the decision caused Ferencz to lose a huge chunk of his livelihood. However, he has been able to slowly rebuild to some extent, picking up a couple of deals with smaller brands far from the Distilled Spirits Council’s reach.
“Scotch Trooper is still kind of a moving target,” Ferencz says. “Scotch Trooper was one thing and that really opened the doors working with brands on the side—social media management, freelance photography, consultant stuff. This whole [Distilled Spirits Council issue] didn’t just kill what was going on the Scotch Trooper side.”
This is pretty personal for me too. I’m well into my forties, and I still collect action figures. A lot of other people my age and older do as well. We’re the Star Wars generation—Gen Xers who grew up with the original trilogy. We’re a nostalgic lot. And now, a lot of us happen to drink whisk(e)y as well. We haven’t traded one hobby for the other. And that’s why Scotch Trooper has been so successful. We’re excited to see millennials and the up-and-coming Generation Z getting as stoked about some of these franchises as we are.
“The reason my account blew up the way it did, at least in my eyes, is that the people who grew up with Star Wars are now at that prime age for getting into whiskey, for getting into spirits in general,” Ferencz notes. “Being able to see characters they grew up loving interacting with the spirits they’re now getting into—it really kind of catapulted what I was doing, that perfect marriage.”
There’s really not much of a difference between the passion that drives Star Wars fans and the passion that fuels whisk(e)y aficionados.
“A geek who gets into Star Wars and dives into finding everything out about characters and their origins is very similar to the way we look at whiskey,” he explains. “It’s not just a spirit we drink to get drunk with friends. We dive into everything about distilleries, find out what barley they’re using, what kind of casks are being married in and the differences between those. There are so many different elements to dive into, so it makes that perfect connection between the two.”
Darth Malt
If this book were a game show, this would be the speed round. I asked Ferencz to come up with the right whiskies to pair with particular