SHAKEN &STIRRED
“I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.” Words of wisdom as spoken by longtime martini aficionado James Bond in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale, though it wasn’t until the 1964 big-screen version of Goldfinger that Sean Connery issued the now-infamous dictum “shaken, not stirred.”
Bond has always been a vodka man; one story goes that Fleming acquired a taste for it while working as a journalist in Russia. Though these days 007’s preferred Smirnoff of the ’60s has been replaced with Belvedere, maker of the official James Bond martini—Belvedere super-premium vodka from Poland, dry vermouth and a twist of lemon—and the liquor Daniel Craig was first seen quaffing in . Bond’s choice of vodka over the traditional gin marked him as adventurous and avant-garde in Fleming’s.
