I once highlighted Book Bench’s feature “Lit Spirits,” which creates cocktails according to the characteristics of famous literary characters.  I believe I referred to it as “astonishingly frivolous,” though an endearing exhibit of a pure, nearly juvenile, love of the written word.

The Daily Beast, I’ve just realized, has started something similar.  Though instead of creating a new cocktail to match a fictional personnage, they pair books with bottles of wine, with their in-house literary sommelier.  Amusingly, their first book choice is a novel about a couple opening a coffee shop.  Wine and coffee?

The 2005 Monti Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a real wine with a sense of place. It delivers the charm of a bright Italian red wine and also offers up a subtle coffee-bean flavor that, if only briefly, catapults me right into a neighborhood coffee shop just like Café Kolschitzky.

I’m not sure I buy the description, but the whole event seems more fun than old-school food pairings.  Yes, rather than worrying about buying white for the halibut and red for the lamb, maybe instead I’ll consider what I’m consuming after dinner.