Movie Style Guy: Casino Royale

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 23, 2006

In honor of the recently released (and super awesome) Casino Royale, we here at Film School Rejects wanted to give you a little something extra. What better way to celebrate the re-birth of Bond than with the re-birth of his favored and fabled martini - The Vesper.

The Vesper is a gin based (traditional) martini named after Vesper Lynd from the Ian Flemming novel Casino Royale. Flemming invented this drink himself, or rather, with a little help from 007. Now, we all know that Bond orders his martini’s shaken, not stirred and I’m sure some of us have heard the snobs of the world complain that a proper martini should be stirred. Let’s put this to rest right now. It really doesn’t make much of a difference. A stirred martini will be a little clearer while a shaken one will be a bit cloudy. A shaken martini is colder. Some will try to tell you a shaken martini is diluted, and perhaps it is, but not to the point of altering it much. It spends more time with the ice, so it gets more water, but the basic alcohol proportions are unchanged. If you hang with a really “elite” crowd, someone in an expensive suit might tell you shaking it “bruises” the gin - though if you can actually taste the difference the martini is on me.

So now that we cleared it up that a shaken martini is fine, and for us and Bond, perfect. What do you need? Simple:

1. Gordon’s Gin

2. Vodka (Russian or Polish) Smirnoff and Absolut have both had Bond endorsements.

3. Dry Vermouth. (Vesper purists say use Lillet Blanc or Kina Lillet Blanc, but this bitter wine isn’t as readily available and no longer has the same ingredient list as in Casino Royale. So we’ll use a Dry or Extra Dry Vermouth.)

4. Martini Shaker

5. Ice

6. Classy glass

7. Lemon peel

8. A plastic bag and a mallet or heavy spoon.

Alright, let’s do this. First, put some ice into the plastic bag and crack it with the mallet or spoon. You don’t need to pulverize it, but break it up a bit. Dump this into your martini shaker.

The ratio for the alcohol is 3:1:.5. If you’re just making one martini, that’s 3 oz gin to 1 oz vodka to .5 oz vermouth. Now, your martini shaker might have a jigger on top of it, like a big shotglass. Odds are it isn’t 1 oz, but thats what I like to use - we just end up with more martini. Score.

So put three measures of gin into the shaker, then one measure of vodka and top it off with half a measure of vermouth. Cap your shaker and shake away. Don’t get too Cocktail on it though as many shakers have relatively loose fitting lids that will fly off if you toss it around. Trust me.

Shake till it’s nice and cold. Now take your classy glass, hopefully it’s a martini glass, and drop in the lemon peel. Some people like to chill the glass beforehand; a cold martini is a great martini. Some also do a drop of vermouth into the glass and swirl it around. Get artistic.

Pour from the shaker, through a strainer to catch the ice, and wham. That’s a vesper martini.

How does it taste? It’s a fairly mild taste for what it is, but that’s not saying it’s sweet. It’s definatly a man’s drink and it hits hard. One of these will have you feeling it and a second may floor some people. But we’re all super spies here.

That’s the Vesper from Casino Royale.

The Plus Side: A classic martini with some style that gets the job done.

The Down Side: You may become an afternoon alcoholic.

On the Side: Later in the series, Bond became a fan of the “vodka martini, shaken not stirred.” To quickly make this drink follow the same process but your ingredients are only vodka and vermouth. The ratio is up to the drink maker, but try 2:1. Instead of lemon, use an olive or cocktail onion.

See you at the bar.

Robert “You Know My Name” Fure

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