James Bond Martini

The new James Bond film "Skyfall" just came out.  I saw it yesterday and liked it.  The imminent release of a new James Bond film got me into a Bond frame of mind so I recently reread the first James Bond book, "Casino Royale".  This book introduced the subject of the Martini into the Bond cannon.  As the books and movies rolled on we all became familiar with the James Bond take on the Cocktail Lounge classic.  It is a standard Martini but made with Vodka instead of Gin, and "shaken not stirred".  But the original "Bond Martini" specified an entirely different recipe.  I haven't reread the rest of the books that Ian Fleming wrote so I don't know where or when the above recipe came to dominate.  And the change might be traceable to the movies.  But when Bond tells a bartender early in the book he wants "a dry Martini" here is the recipe he specifies:

• In a deep Champagne goblet
• Three measures of Gordon's (a Gin)
• One measure of Vodka
• 1/2 measure of Kina Lillet
• Shake until very cold then pour into the glass
• Add a slice of lemon peel
• Finally, he advises the use of "grain" Vodka, not "potato" Vodka

My question is:  Is this really a Martini?  In support of the idea that this is NOT a Martini, Bond opines later in the book that perhaps the drink should be called a "Vesper" after the name of the girl in the book.

"Casino Royale" was originally published in 1953.  Then and now the design of a "Martini Glass" has remained the same.  But in 1953 Champagne glasses looked very different than they do today.  Then they were had a very shallow bowl.  Think of a Martini glass.  But instead of a funnel shaped bowl think of a bowl of about the same depth but with a rounded bottom.  That was the long accepted proper shape for a Champagne glass.  You can see it in "Fred and Ginger" movies from the '30s.  In fact, my mother had some Champagne glasses from the '40s that differed only in that they had a hollow stem.  The stem was of a fairly narrow diameter but the very center was hollow.  This created a narrow tube of a couple of inches in length.  The tube facilitated the creation of a stream of bubbles that rose in a nearly straight line up the center of the glass.  But the bowl shape was the long accepted one.

Champagne glasses are now much taller and considerably narrower.  Why?  Nose.  The best glass for a drink that has an aromatic component is one that requires you to put your nose into a semi-enclosed space above the surface of the liquid while you are taking a sip.  The classic example is Brandy.  Some components of Brandy start evaporating as soon as it is exposed to the open air.  If you pour Brandy into a balloon glass then the volume above the surface of the Brandy is ideal for collecting these aromatic components.  Then you put your nose into this volume when you are sipping the drink.  This makes it easy for your nose to get a nice strong dose of these aromatic components.  As a result, the Brandy "tastes" wonderful.

Gin has little or no aromatic component.  So putting Gin, the principal component of a Martini, into a glass that does not have a semi-enclosed volume above the surface of the liquid works fine.  Apparently, people used to put Champagne into this same non-aromatic category.  So the proper glass was one that did not have the semi-enclosed volume.  Somewhere, well after the 1950's, someone wised up.  So we saw a shift in design to a glass that had a semi-enclosed volume.  A modern Champagne glass is not as well designed for this purpose as a Brandy snifter but it's not bad.  So, if you are drinking Champagne and you don't have access to a modern Champagne glass, go for a Brandy snifter rather than a martini glass or a classic Champagne glass.

And this brings to the end a long digression whose bottom line is that I don't know exactly what the shape of the glass Bond was recommending but it is definitely not a classic Martini glass.  That's one difference.  To see what other differences there might be let's look at the recipe for a standard classic Martini:

• Into a small pitcher pour Gin and Dry Vermouth in appropriate proportions.
• A small amount of ice may be present in the pitcher to keep everything cool.
• Stir the ingredients together.
• Decant into a cold Martini glass leaving all the ice behind.
• Add a Green Olive on a toothpick as a garnish.

Historically, a Martini was referred to as a "Dry Martini" because it used Dry Vermouth rather than Sweet Vermouth.  But over time the use of Sweet Vermouth was discontinued in favor of Dry Vermouth and "Dry" came to mean a high proportion of Gin and a low proportion of Vermouth.  By the usual definitions of what now constitutes "Dry", Bond's recipe qualifies.  The ratio of Gin+Vodka to Vermouth is 8 to 1.  So to that extent Bond's recipe is in line with a standard Martini.  But:

1. As noted above Bond specifies a non-standard glass.
2. He specifies a mixture of Gin and Vodka.  A standard Martini contains only Gin.
3. He specifies Kina Lillet, a very unusual and uncommon Vermouth.
4. He specifies "shaken not stirred".
5. He specifies a Lemon Slice rather than the traditional Green Olive.

This is a lot of deviation from the standard recipe.  I don't think what you end up with can properly be called a Martini.  But wait.  It gets worse.  I have given Fleming the benefit of the doubt by calling Kina Lillet a Vermouth.  But there is some controversy about that.  The original formula for Kina Lillet contained a lot of Quinine, which made it quite bitter (think Gin and Tonic).  Also, the Lillet company had been using the name "Lillet Dry" to refer to their Vermouth-like product well before the time the book came out.  And shortly thereafter, they reformulated the product to make it less bitter.  So you couldn't find "Kina Lillet" at the time Fleming wrote the book and you can't even find its modern equivalent under any name now.

Then and now, the most popular brand of Vermouth is Martini & Rossi.  And we now have lots of super premium brands of Gin.  My mother is partial to Diamond Sapphire, for instance.  And there is a whole cult around Vodka now.  The most well known super premium brand now is Stolichnaya.  I don't know if Bond would have been down with trading with the enemy.  But if he had specified "Stoli", as it is popularly referred to now, and especially if he had asked for "Stoli Elit", he would been happy to know that it is a grain Vodka (wheat and rye) and not a lowly potato Vodka.

Finally, I am not a Martini drinker but that hasn't stopped me from collecting a couple of recipes for how to make a really dry "Dry Martini".  Try them and see what you think:

Forbin Martini - This comes from the book and movie of the same name, "The Forbin Project":

• Fill a funnel with ice.
• Hold the Ice filled funnel over a pitcher and drizzle Vermouth over the ice.
• Hold the funnel over a chilled Martini glass and pour Gin through the ice and into the glass.
• Add the traditional Olive garnish.
• Serve.
• (Discard the Vermouth in the pitcher and the ice in the funnel).

The only Vermouth in the final product is what stuck to the ice between the Vermouth and the Gin steps.

Tugboat Martini - I got this from an old family friend:

•  A week or more before the Martini will be served drain all the liquid out of the bottle containing the Green Olives.  Discard the liquid.
• Fill the bottle with Vermouth instead.
• Refrigerate the bottle with the Olive and Vermouth combination for at least a week.
• Remove a chilled Martini glass from the Freezer.
• Pour the Gin (hopefully also chilled) straight into the glass filling it most of the way to the top.
• Using a toothpick skewer one or more Olives from the jar in the refrigerator and add as a garnish.
• Serve.

Here the only Vermouth in the final drink is what sticks to the Olives.

Both of these drinks are easy to prepare.  Enjoy.

Update (08/30/2015) -

I have now reread the Bond cannon through "Dr. No" (#6 - published March 31, 1958).  At this point Bond is specifying a Martini that conforms to pretty much what we now expect.  It consists of Vodka (Polish or Russian - no more talk of potato versus grain), Vermouth, "shaken - not stirred", and the "twist of Lemon".  The proportion of the ingredients is no longer specified (apparently left to the discression of the bartender) and he has apparently left behind the Gin and the Kina Lillet of the original recipe.  If one is an aficionado of modern bar culture when it comes to Martinis it is now routine to specify Vodka instead of Gin and various twists ,including but not restricted to Lemon, are ok as a substitute for the olive.  So Bond is now main stream (except that pretty much nobody thinks the "shaken - not stirred" specification is a good idea).

And at this point in his evolution Bond's choice of other potables is now also pretty middle of the road.  The brands he specifies are a step up from bottom of the line "bar" brands but they are not anything special.  A modern Bond should be drinking some kind of super-premium single malt scotch.  The same would be true of his Vodka preference.  There are now lots of quite fancy Vodkas.  If you want to avoid Eastern Europe, for instance, you can go with Grey Goose, a French brand.  The basic version is several steps above a "bar" Vodka.  But Grey Goose also has a "VX" super-premium version that goes for about three times the price of the regular version.  If super-premium booze existed at the time, Bond (or more likely Fleming) was not familiar with it.

And, thanks to work by my brother Mike, I can also report some results on what Martini drinkers think of the Tugboat recipe reproduced above.  Neither he nor I are Martini drinkers but he has friends who are.  He prepared some Tugboat Martinis and had them do a taste test.  The results were not good for the Tugboat concept.  No one was a fan.  From this I conclude that Martini drinkers are not just looking for an excuse to drink straight Gin.  Both the Tugboat and the Forbin recipe result in a super-dry drink that is only a tiny step away from straight Gin.  For most Martini drinkers the step is not far enough.  Apparently there is such a thing as a Martini that is too dry.  Dry is good.  Super-dry is bad.