James Bond Wants Some Glue and Some Milk

James Bond Wants Some Glue and Some Milk
© Jon Donlon 2007

I’ve always liked martinis; never thought there was much philosophical difference between a martini and a vodka martini ‘aside from it being made with vodka and the obvious ramifications of flavor. But, then, I never really thought that those flavored, multi-ingredient concoctions were martinis. After all, what would a cocktail be in that case?

If a martini is gin and vermouth, and a vodka martini is a martini made with vodka instead of gin, that is clear enough. Then, cocktails are the various mixed drinks. Why should there be confusion? Though this should be “clear” for obvious reasons, the terrain is in fact a gray area. David, my virtually life-long boon companion and frequent advisor of food and beverage, usually tips me to things of a distilled lineage, but I got a good deal of vodka info during my undergrad days from a Persian pal.

Not only did my Iranian colleague carefully explain the benefit of branded drink for neat use (then, and now, Stalachnaya seems a benchmark) he was a stickler for keeping everything icy cold: glassware, stirrer or shaker, and bottle. The several times we larked about together we kept a special ice chest just for the vodka and accoutrement.

From the experience I’ve learned to keep the martini glasses and the bottle in the freezer. Indeed, since those halcyon days of yore [a wonderful reminder of which are the wry "art" wit cards I get from another pal, but that's another tale]. I’ve even come to find out that all that bleating about the role of anal sex in Islam was not the merely normal discourse of a perverted petroleum engineer nor the chemical dementia induced by super-cooled potato distillates. Religion does have a profound effect on public health, including the ways in which people try to finesse the regular social mores while “bending” the rules.

Although I like my clear liquor with vermouth, in its home range most folks throw it down the hatch with wild abandon, unadulterated. Culture is, of course, learned; so I suppose I saw the Bond films before I visited Moscow. The martini method stuck.

It would be nice to imagine I was aping that famous spy, ordering my martini “shaken, not stirred.” And remember that Bond is drinking a ‘vodka’ martini, my preferred variant. Well, sort of. If you bother to look up the text (and that’s just the kind of thing I do, scooting around the internet or roaming the dusty library shelves). Bond’s creator and Jamaican resident, now long dead, Ian Fleming gives a recipe for the agent’s weird drink in chapter 7 of Casino Royale, first published in 1953:

"A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."
"Oui, monsieur."
"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?"

They used to use white wine in martinis, now it’s usually vermouth, a sort of white wine, and Kina Lillet is a brand of vermouth. In text the suave (but not as suave as he winds up being on screen, I’d say) spy calls this thing a ‘vesper,’ perhaps an homage to a beautiful double agent.

Always keenly aware of his health, Bond generally orders his martinis shaken not stirred.

Many, many mixed drinks exist but the transition from martini to another mixed drink is very easy to make: add any thing else. Put chocolate or apple juice in a martini and its not a “chocolate martini” or “apple martini,” but rather a new mixed drink. Of course, I suppose we could call that new mixed drink a chocolate martini in the sense we use the term “monopoly money” knowing it’s neither a legitimate monopoly nor actual money.

And now we get down to cases, because there are at least three main differences between being stirred or being shaken. First, a shaken martini is typically colder. That’s because the ice has had more chance to circulate in the solution. Next, shaking the drink dissolves ambient air into the martini. You may have heard about "bruising" the gin? This is it, and it makes a shaken martini taste "sharp." Last, a shaken martini dissolves the vermouth, or that’s the claim. The affect is to give a less “oily” feel in the mouth.

As my Persian friend taught me so well, so many years ago, especially for vodka martinis, cold is king. You’d think cold would anesthetize taste buds. I wonder how that works? At least one opinion holds that “the experience of a traditional martini is more dependent on it being smooth and on not ruining the delicate flavors of the gin.” From that perspective, stirring, not shaking, would be the best option, how could Bond, James Bond, be wrong?

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