Authors: Roger Moore
Bond On Bond (20 page)
With Daniel Craig, a new Aston Martin was introduced – the DB9. Something tells me he’ll have to go for the expensive valeting option.
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Sharing a glass of bubbly in Chantilly with Tania Roberts.
O
nce upon a time, heroes wore chainmail and armour, rode around on horses and sat down to an opulent banquet using their bare hands to tear apart their food. That wouldn’t do for Jimmy Bond – the quintessential well-dressed English spy who epitomizes style. Old Jimbo has become something of a style icon and the phrase ‘living the Bond lifestyle’ conjures up images of the very best things life has to offer by way of sharp clothes, expensive champagnes, fast cars, beautiful women, speed boats and fine dining.
The famous vodka Martini, so often stirred instead of being shaken. Although I never ordered one in any of my seven films, here I am with one – though not, I hasten to add, served in a proper Martini glass.
Mention the ‘Bond lifestyle’ and images of casinos, fast cars, speedboats and beautiful girls all come to mind, as is so brilliantly illustrated in this competition flyer from 1989.
Bond preferred Polish or Russian vodka at a time when the only brand available in the West would have been Stolichnaya. Besides his famous ‘Martini, shaken, not stirred’, Jim often drank a shot of straight vodka, served with a pinch of black pepper. This was not for the flavour, he explained, ‘but because it caused the impurities in cheap vodka to sink to the bottom’. Though I fear that trick wouldn’t have improved the Siamese vodka he downed in the film
You Only Live Twice
!
Variation on a theme – Daniel Craig enjoys a Vesper Martini with Eva Green – aka Vesper – in
Casino Royale
. When Vesper asks Bond if he named the drink after her because of the bitter aftertaste, 007 replies that he named it for her, ‘because once you have tasted it, you won’t drink anything else.’
Bond and vodka have gone hand in hand since
Dr. No
, when the titular villain handed 007 a ‘Martini, shaken not stirred’. This fleeting moment in the film literally changed the way Martini drinkers made their cocktails from then on, shifting from the traditional gin to a vodka-based drink and popularizing the vodka Martini the world over.
I myself prefer a gin Martini and, in all my years of travelling, believe the best is served in the bar of Maison Pic, in Valence, France. How do they prepare it?
First, the ingredients. My gin of choice is Tanqueray and vermouth has to be Noilly Prat.
Take the glass or cocktail shaker you are using and, for two sensible-sized Martinis, fill ¼ of each glass with Noilly Prat. Swill it around and then discard it. Next, top the glasses up with gin, drop in a zest of lemon, and place the glasses in a freezer or ice-cold fridge until you are – or should I say
she
is – ready.
Both Pierce and Timothy were partial to a Martini – but Timothy appears to be mixing his drinks in this shot.
Bond appreciates other drinks, too. For instance, when, in my first 007 film, I walked into a Harlem bar, it wasn’t a vodka Martini I asked for. Far from it. I requested ‘bourbon and water, please – no ice’. In
GoldenEye
Jim drinks a bourbon – Jack Daniel’s – with M, while in
The World Is Not Enough
and
Die Another Day
he also enjoys drinking Talisker whisky. M pours Bond a glass of Talisker in
The World Is Not Enough
, into which Bond puts ice – something not at all recommended by the distiller – but his fingers, wet from the ice, exude a fizzing substance, which leads him to realize a bomb had been planted in Sir Robert King’s money, money that he’d just been handling. Good old Jim.
But Bond is perhaps more closely associated with the finest champagne – be it served in bed with a delicious girl, in an underwater escape pod or on the way back from the Arctic Circle in a submarine. Most famously Bollinger and Dom Perignon have featured in the movies, though I must admit I have a fondness for Taittinger and am not opposed to Moët & Chandon either.
You can’t have a vodka Martini without vodka. Jim preferred Russian. I’m not averse to it, or taking part in a bit of product placement – as seen here in
A View To A Kill
.
Bollinger champagnes used in the movies:
Live and Let Die
: Bollinger
Moonraker: Bollinger RD ’69
A View To A Kill
: Bollinger ’75
Licence To Kill
: Bollinger RD ’75
The Living Daylights
: Bollinger …
GoldenEye
: Bollinger Grande Année 1988
Tomorrow Never Dies
: Bollinger Grande Année 1989
The World Is Not Enough
: Bollinger Grande Année 1990
Die Another Day
: Bollinger ’61
Casino Royale
: Bollinger Grande Année 1990