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| Chip's improved photo (see comments) |
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The Vesper*
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'A dry martini,' [Bond] 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 can think of a good name.'
—Ian Fleming, Casino Royale (1953)
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*This one's destined for a retail display
14 comments:
OT - Police caught the remaining Shawshank prison fugitive alive.
3 miles from the Canadian border.
Lem said...
OT - Police caught the remaining Shawshank prison fugitive alive.
The one with Harvard's endowment?
Four liquid ounces is half a cup.
The way I understand it from hanging around adults, who drink a lot, and osmosis, and all that, knowledge-absorption without actually having any lessons, is one side of thing is an ounce and the other side of the thing is a jigger, an ounce and a half.
So if four measures is four jiggers then that would be 6 oz, 3/4 cup.
Either way too much alcohol before, during and after lunch, f'n sot. Everybody's a sot. Who drinks that much? It would put me BLAM right under the table.
I pity da foo who drinks that.
But. It is a beautiful replication you made there. You had to have experimented with color and tone and lemon twist has two colors and two textures only to mention its additional shape apart from the drink.
Did you coat a real lemon rind with plastic? Or is it made from plastic too?
It looks drinkable.
"Sweat Falls" Instapundit.
Chickelit, if you don't mind, please do not be offended, I took your photo and used the white balance eyedropper and tapped the glint of reflected light on the rim of the glass in the photo that tells Photoshop, "make this pixel the brightest value of correct white and adjust every other pixel accordingly." Boom the whole thing got brighter. Wannaseeit?Wannaseeit?Wannaseeit?Wannaseeit? Okay, take it, if you like. Bottom right on Flickr, the arrow that points down opens a window for sizes to take.
Of course I'm not offended, Chip. I put it in the post to show the difference.
I admit to being an amateur with the photos-iPhone quickies. My wife thinks I need to stage these things to make the photos look more professional.
The lemon peel started out as a plastic slice which stripped out the innards from. Then I had to paint in the pith. I dropped it in after poured the "drink."
Lighting is crucial. I made a champagne which looks rather dull under fluorescent light but it actually sparkles under incandescent lighting.
I could have sworn there is a 2nd definition of "perspire" meaning "to die" antiquated, charming, "she simply perspired from sadness" or "he perspired from earth unto heaven" sort of thing, that would have allowed for a hastily crafted pun, but no, there is not such thing. I'm wrong. Flat wrong. What a bummer. There goes that sweat/perspire/almost die pun diminishing a serious subject in poor taste. I feel an emptiness. A pun-void. Like a blank dirt patch in a container that needs a caladium bulb-root planted in it that gives bald spots promise.
A woik of Art, Chip. You are an inspiration to get good enough at Photoshop to make it worth the subscription cost. (Nowadays, you seldom BUY professional software. Adobe, Microsoft, AutoCAD, et al. simply bleed it from you, month-by-month, or year-by-year, if you have enough to make the annual payments. You can save up for it not drinking 6-1/2 oz. Martinis)
Chip, I have two disparate interests in the word perspire. The first is that it's a great example of parallel words in the English language. I mean, it's a polite way of saying "to sweat." There are many, many other examples having to do with bodily functions: to spit; to expectorate. To shit; to defecate. The "polite" form is always the French/Latin word and the cruder version is always the Anglo-Saxon word. This has been with us since 1066 I suppose.
My second interest is the prefix "per" which, inter alia, means "throughout, completely." There are some great examples in chemistry for example hypochlorous, chlorous, chloric, perchloric -- the latter means completely chlorinated.
When it comes to making cocktails, I prefer language like "measures" or better "parts" rather than strict volumetric amounts. It's more universal. It's more like chemical stoichiometry as well:
3Gin + Vodka + 1/2 Lillet = Vesper
Lillet is an interesting and under-used produst in my opinion. It's usually sold as a dry vermouth but it's actually a tonic (much like tonic water) because it has added quinine which is/was an effective anti-malarial.
Quinine is also a muscle relaxant.
While I get a kick out of James Bond in some ways (not in others, as might be obvious), that quote about only having one drink, but it has to be large and "very cold" doesn't really make any sense to me.
If what you want is a cold drink, why wouldn't you want to have two smaller drinks, rather than one large one? The second half is sitting there, getting warm. Why not just have it made fresh?
To Chip's point: I'm pretty sure those Martini glasses you see nowadays--I have one--hold at least a half a cup. But when you order a Martini out, the bartender shakes the thing to death, so you end up with a lot of water. You want some, but most of the time, it's too much. So either you get a half-full glass, or else you do have more booze, if the glass is full.
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