VESPERS ARE FOREVER

My pal Joanna and I were in the Pembury bar, in Roux at Parliament Square, a ritzy watering hole if ever there was one, and not my usual stomping ground, but since we're being Christmas, every London pub was exploding with people, most of whom it seems only ever go to a pub once a year, so the Pembury was the quiet option, though it wasn't quite as quiet as it looks in this pic from their website:

The cocktail menu featured a James Bond Vesper Martini – that old cookie - in this case “Sipsmith Gin, Belvedere Vodka, Lillet Blanc,” though as any fool knows, the modern version of Lillet Blanc is made to a different recipe from the one Bond would have known.

The Vesper cost 15 quid which seemed pretty steep but that’s how it is with ritzy watering holes, and given that the non-alcoholic "One For The Fox" which either contains or consists of “Citrus Agave” cost £12, our Vespers could conceivably be thought of as bargains.

The drinks came and they were perfectly decent, good enough that we drank them and then tried to order two more.  However, the waiter told us they’d run out of Lillet – by which I suppose he meant that we’d just drunk the last of it - but that we could have a version made with vermouth instead of Lillet so we had that.  And they were perfectly decent too, though in smaller glasses, even if the pour may have been the same size.

Next day I was walking down Kings Road and came across a shop selling classic James Bond posters, like this one for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

I don’t remember if George Lazenby drank cocktails as 007, but even if the film ruined him, he did at least get a gig selling Kronenberg.

YOU ONLY DRINK ONCE

Of course it's the record player that's really cool.

You’ve probably heard me say before that James Bond, fictional as he was, must have been the worst customer in the world when he came into the bar where you were working. He’d be there telling you how to make his drink, telling you how to do your job, being an all round clever dick.  I imagine a certain amount of spit might have gone into the shaker if he ever turned his eyes away.

Well, thanks to a book titled The Man with the Golden Typewriter, a collection of Ian Fleming’s correspondence, edited by Fergus Fleming (Ian’s nephew), it seems that Bond’s far from fictional creator wasn’t much less annoying.

Fergus has tracked down Ernest Cuneo, an American lawyer, newspaperman, author, intelligence liaison officer,a spy during World War Two, and a long time friend of Fleming.  Cuneo is quoted in the book, “Of all the maddening trivia through which I have suffered, nothing quite matched Fleming’s instructions on how his (martinis) were to be made. [He] was painfully specific about both the vermouth and the gin and explained each step to the guy who was going to mix it as if it were a delicate brain operation. Several times I impatiently asked him why the hell he didn’t go downstairs and mix it himself, but he ignored me as if he hadn’t heard and continued right on with his instructions. Equally annoyingly, he always warmly congratulated the captain when he tasted it as if he had just completed a fleet manoeuvre at flank speed.”

Oh dear. 

     According to some credible, if not cast-iron, online sources there was a time when Fleming was drinking a bottle of gin a day. His doctor convinced him to substitute bourbon.  Where do people find these doctors?

I can’t for the life of me find a photograph of Ian Fleming with a martini, unless that's one above in a wine glass (surely not): hard enough to find one of him with a drink.  Cigarettes and guns no problem whatsoever.