Yesterday, January 16, David Lynch, the iconic television and film author, died at the age of 78. This was announced by Lynch’s family on the day of his death. Facebook page.
Lynch had a cult following that he had amassed over more than 40 years as a writer, director and sometimes actor. From to to , Lynch was an eccentric outsider who exploded with genres, but nonetheless carved out a place for himself in Hollywood with his unique, often surreal vision of what art and entertainment could be.
He was also a great coffee lover, which was noticeable in his works. You really don’t need to look any further than “a damn good cup of coffee,” a phrase given to agent Dale Cooper that has become synonymous with Lynch himself. Before the world of renowned coffee brands and dazzling collaborations, there was David Lynch, Hollywood’s biggest coffee fan. His love for coffee was pure, true and deeply strange in the best sense of the word, just like him.
And coffee loved him. At Sprudge, we’ve been covering Lynch and its intersection with the world of coffee for about 15 years. In the coming days and weeks, a litany of articles will be published on Lynch’s life and his impact on television and film, and we could certainly add our two cents on the coffee issue, but it wouldn’t be fundamentally different from what we’ve done over the last decade and a half.
So today, in honor of David Lynch, we’re taking a look back at some of our reporting on him over the years. It’s not a rose-tinted eulogy for a deceased person, but a reminder of the stories of his life as we saw them in real time, and I think that reinforces the love and admiration he has for the world of coffee, and Lynch lives it even more.
Coffee in the murky heart of the real Twin Peaks
In 2017, Sprudge collaborator Eric J. Grimm took a trip to the Pacific Northwest in search of the real Twin Peaks. Grimm’s sprawling and eerie – and with its own ballroom companion – search for coffee and cherry pie is itself a Lynchian endeavor that, in featherlight of the news, seems a fitting ode to the man.
David Lynch’s unintentional coffee lynchism
What’s it like to be a Lynchian? David Foster Wallace described it as “a special kind of irony in which the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the perpetual confinement of the former within the latter.” And that’s certainly an apt way to describe David Lynch’s Coffee and its accompanying commercial, directed and produced by Lynch back in 2012.
It had all the hallmarks of Lynch: anxiety, a mix of the mundane and the macabre, and just general confusion. In his summary, Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman described it aptly:
“And if David Lynch dies tomorrow, or David Lynch never releases another film, these coffee ads – and coffee itself – will be the last work of this brilliant, epoch-making filmmaker who defined a generation. It is a fate so thoroughly Lynchian that the mind shudders and delights in the horror.
David Lynch and the Orange County Theorem themed coffee pop-up
Before becoming the founder of Dayglow, a highly touted multi-roaster with coffee shops in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Chicago, Tohm Ifergan was a barista at Portola Coffee in Costa Mesa. There, at Theorem, Portoli’s six-seat concept bar, Ifergan created a monthly menu of Lynch-inspired coffee cocktails. I mean, attractive, esoteric and a lot of fun. Relive the great day of quality coffee in 2015 – bow ties and all – through the lens of one David Lynch.
David Lynch, “Mulholland Drive” and the importance of specialty coffee
David Lynch’s work tends to analyze, delving into details in search of a deeper truth. And often, with enough digging, these truths can be found. Such was the case with 2023 Sprudge contributor Jackson O’Brien’s story about finding lessons for coffee professionals hidden in intensity . In particular, this article highlights the power of Lynch’s work – a film released in 2001 can still provide novel insights more than two decades later.
