Shaken not Stirred?  Tisk Tisk

The martini (continued)

Global consternation erupted when, in Dr. No, James Bond ordered a Smirnoff vodka martini. He then compounded this felony by instructing that it be “shaken, not stirred.”

Previously in this series: How Does a Cocktail Achieve “Classic” Status?
Here is the original text of this unfortunate incident:

[In the prior scene Bond ultimately wins a long and brutal baccarat match against his arch-enemy, Le Chiffre.]

Bond strolled into the casino bar feeling tired but pleased with himself. But then he faltered, covering his discomfiture by lighting a Morland. The lady standing behind the red leather-covered bar on the left, the one with her arms crossed beneath two magnificent breasts, could be none other than the notorious Princess Lucky that M had warned Bond about. But M had neglected to mention that she was an exotic beauty.

According to M, the Princess was known to kill her male victims by crushing them between her powerful thighs – an alluring technique, thought Bond, given that we all have to die anyway.

The lady met Bond’s gaze and held it until he slipped onto a barstool. Then his eyes dropped to her breasts and, inevitably, to those remarkable thighs, now so poorly concealed by her brief skirt.

She said, “I have not had the pleasure. I am Princess Aperol von Daiquiri Mojito della Bacardi – but my friends call me Princess Lucky. And you are?”

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.”

“And what may Princess Lucky do for you this lovely evening, Mr. Bond?”

She was holding a drinks menu, but Bond didn’t think she was talking about cocktails. To play for time he said, “If you don’t mind, mix me a Smirnoff vodka martini, very dry, very cold, and shaken, not stirred.”

The Princess raised a troubled eyebrow. “A curious choice,” she said. She made a shrug of displeasure, but then added, “But of course you are the customer.”

She bowed slightly and as she did so Bond reached out, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her up to his room.

There is much to be unhappy about in this scene, and if we were Ian Fleming’s editor we would require many changes. Alas, Mr. Fleming long ago went off to that Great Martini in the Sky, so we will have to make the edits ourselves, focusing on three issues: vodka, shaken, and sexism. Here is the improved text:

[In the prior scene Bond ultimately wins a brutal baccarat match against his arch-enemy, Le Chiffre.]

Bond strolled into the casino bar feeling tired but pleased with himself. But then he faltered, covering his discomfiture by lighting a Morland. The lady standing behind the red leather-covered bar on the left, the one with her arms crossed beneath two magnificent breasts, could be none other than the notorious Princess Lucky that M had warned Bond about. But M had neglected to mention that she was an exotic beauty.

According to M the Princess was known to kill her male victims by crushing them between her powerful thighs – an alluring technique, thought Bond, given that we all have to die anyway.

The lady met Bond’s gaze and held it until he slipped onto a barstool. Then his eyes dropped to her breasts and, inevitably, to those remarkable thighs, now so poorly concealed by her brief skirt.

She said, “I have not had the pleasure. I am Princess Aperol von Daiquiri Mojito della Bacardi – but my friends call me Princess Lucky. And you are?”

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.”

“And what may Princess Lucky do for you this lovely evening, Mr. Bond?”

She was holding a drinks menu, but Bond didn’t think she was talking about cocktails. To play for time he said, “If you don’t mind, mix me a Plymouth gin martini, very dry, very cold, and stirred, not shaken.”

“A superb choice!” she exclaimed. “You have my admiration, Mr. Bond!”

Bond bowed his head slightly to acknowledge the compliment, and as he did so. she reached out, grabbed him by the hair and dragged him up to her room.

But back to this imposter called the “vodka martini” – there is no such thing. It’s true that anyone can mix vodka and dry vermouth in a glass, but that doesn’t make it a martini. Elsewhere in the cocktail world we are more discerning. A Bloody Mary, for example, is made with vodka. If you substitute gin it doesn’t become a “gin Bloody Mary,” it becomes a Red Snapper.

So let’s dispense with this foolishness once and for all. From now on a “vodka martini” will be called a “Vodkatini” or “The Mistake in a Glass.” Your choice.

As noted above, it was bad enough that Bond ordered a vodka martini, but to order it “shaken, not stirred” was flat-out unendurable.

Stirring cocktails has been done since cocktails were invented, while shaking only arose when it became fashionable to use ice in drinks (in the early nineteenth century). Stirring, however, remained the preferred method until just after Prohibition when, as The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails  puts it, a “flood of untrained bartenders” caused shaking to return with a vengeance.

Many martini connoisseurs objected to Bond asking that his drink be shaken because they believed it would bruise the gin – or, in this demented case, the vodka. Actually, you couldn’t bruise booze with a bulldozer. But the connoisseurs were on to something, namely, that stirring and shaking result in very different outcomes.

There are very good (scientific!) reasons why you don’t shake martinis but you do shake Daiquiris. In the first place, most all-alcohol drinks are meant to be clear and shaking clouds them up, making them look unappetizing even if they taste okay.

That’s because shaking does a number of things to a cocktail that might or might not be good for it. In the first place, it causes tiny shards of ice to collect in the drink, along with oxygen and carbon dioxide, clouding and diluting the liquid. As somebody once said on The West Wing, “Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of gin and vermouth.”

To remember which drinks should be stirred and which should be shaken, simply keep in mind Princess Lucky’s Ironclad Rule of Cocktailian Mixology: if a cocktail is made only of spirits (gin and vermouth, for example) it should be stirred. Drinks that have non-alcoholic ingredients (like the Daiquiri) should be shaken.

Next up: The Oxford Companion, Part 7