Sunday, June 04, 2006

EDM#69 : Favourite beverage - Shaken,not stirred


I am a big fan of James Bond films and books and I cannot leave unused the oportunity to draw some of favourite drink :-) :

The ingredients and method to prepare Bond's martini was invented by him and first requested in Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale (1953). After just meeting his good friend Felix Leiter for the first time, Bond orders the drink from a barman while at the casino Royale-les-Eaux.

"'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?'
'Certainly monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.
'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter.
Bond laughed. 'When I'm . . . er . . . concentrating,' he explained, '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. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I think of a good name.'"
(Casino Royale, Chapter 7: Rouge et Noir)

This is the only instance where Ian Fleming's Bond orders his martini with both vodka and gin; it is later referred to as a "Vesper," named after the Bond girl, Vesper Lynd. Throughout Fleming's adventures Bond appears to prefer vodka martinis, but also drinks regular gin martinis. In total Bond orders 19 vodka martinis and 16 gin martinis throughout Fleming's novels and short stories .
The film adaptation of Casino Royale (Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Caterina Murino) is in production phase now and you can see it in cinemas November 17 ,2006 .

Note: For me this was good practice in watercolour to depict shiny metal surface, transparent and semitransparent objects.
And no , I don´t know taste of this cocktail :-)

4 comments:

Teri said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Alison said...

Well, you have done well, rendering the metal and the twist of lemon peel just makes it - lovely.

Sue Seibert said...

Jan, I absolutely love your watercolor of Vespers! You really rendered the shiny metal very well, and I love the twist!!
Wonderful painting!!

starrgirl's world said...

wonderful journal entry - the drawing is very illustrative and the commentary was so fun to read!