The popular perception of Tiki drinks is that they are all rum all the time. While rum is certainly the central spirit to the movement, the Ancient Tiki Masters did not hew to it exclusively. Today’s Tiki drink is a gin-based concoction originated by Trader Vic.

More sour than your average Tiki drink, the Pogo Stick is nonetheless delicious. And it is the first gin drink of any genre I’ve encountered that uses a blender.
The name comes from the alternate garnish option that the Trader came up with. As I said, this drink is brighter in flavor than most Tiki concoctions, but rather than just hit it with some simple syrup, he would set a rock candy swizzle stick next to it when serving. It you want it sweeter, just stir the drink with the stick. The longer you stir, the sweeter it gets. It’s a cool idea, and I hope to find time to experiment more with it later this month. For my taste, this drink is delicious as is, without the stick, but for many, I can definitely see the appeal.

Welcome to Not Martha readers! It is Tiki Month here at the Pegu Blog, so please look around while you’re here!

From: Trader Vic’s Tiki Party!

There is a Secret Handshake™ among the cocktailian elite of the 21st Century. If you see anyone displaying proficiency with it, you know they are members of the Lodge. And should you employ it yourself, other cocktailians will know you are conversant in the mysteries.
This handshake is the Aviation Cocktail.

There are a number of reasons that this drink is so appealing to drink wonks.

• First, it is delicious. Delicate and balanced, but potent, the Aviation provides a lot to think about while you enjoy it.
• Second, it’s a classic. At nearly a hundred years old, the concoction dates back to the golden age of cocktails.
• Third, it has snob/wonk appeal. There are unconventional and exotic ingredients in the Aviation. And nothing appeals more to the modern cocktailian than the opportunity to employ such ingredients. Just drop in for any TDN to behold the truth of my words.
• Fourth, it is gorgeous. The pale violet color is appealing on its own, and makes a great frame for the dark redness of the nestled cherry.

You know, you could just cut all the purple prose, and tell us how to make the drink….

Oh very well. I just wanted to flaunt my knowledge of the Secret Handshake™, so all the cool kids will know that I’m an initiate.
And har har. Purple prose. Very cute. You can be replaced, you know.
Anyway, here is how I make an Aviation:

It is a simple cocktail to make, but a hard one for which to acquire the ingredients. Luxardo is reasonably available, even in Ohio, but you will have to look in a specialty store for it. Creme de Violette was unavailable anywhere on Earth for decades, and its successful reappearance on the market was one of the early indicators that our modern cocktail renaissance had commercial legs. You can make the recipe without the Creme de Violette, but it won’t be purple, it won’t be quite as good, and as far as I’m concerned, it won’t really be an Aviation.
Lastly, there is the gin to consider. The occasion for my writing this post was the Liquor Fairy’s arrival with a bottle of Aviation Gin, along with a bottle of Krogstad Aquavit. Aviation is a brand I had heard of all over the place, but had never personally encountered before, but I am now thoroughly hooked. I’m hooked on it in general, but for Aviation Cocktail’s in particular, which should hardly be a surprise.

Aviation Gin was actually named after the Aviation Cocktail. This is a tribute to the brand’s uniquely cocktailian heritage, as it was developed through a partnership between craft distillers and a mixologist.
My usual process when testing a new gin is usually to first make a Pegu… hey, it’s what I do. But here I made an exception and instead whipped up an Aviation the first evening the bottle arrived.
This is a delicious gin, folks.
House Spirits Distilling deliberately downplays the juniper in Aviation. The juniper is still the lead, but it lets the other kids speak too. The resulting spirit would likely be a lot more accessible for those drinkers who are a bit leery of gin, or are outright gin virgins. For the gin evangelists out there, Aviation Gin is a powerful preaching tool. I found it particularly great with the Aviation Cocktail because the broader, more complex and less powerful taste of the gin lets the maraschino and creme de violette relax, rather than working for attention.
Aviation bills itself as a New Western Dry Gin. This is intended to indicate that it is a style distinct from London Dry or Plymouth. Another (very different) example of such a gin would probably be Hendrick’s. If House Spirits and other makers of such gins want this new appellation to take hold, they will have to produce a better description that they currently have. You can read it at this link (PDF), since it is too long for me to reasonably blockquote here. This is one of its problems, of course. It is also chatty, colloquial, and indefinite.

Sounds like you….

Exactly. But I’ll take a shot at writing a definition that doesn’t sound like I wrote it. We’ll see what people think.

New Western Dry Gin
New Western Dry Gins are produced through the redistillation of neutral spirits with a variety of botanical elements, chief of which is juniper. New Western gins are distinguished from London Dry in that the supporting botanicals form an ensemble with the defining juniper, rather than a supporting cast.

Regardless, the ensemble in Aviation Gin puts on a very enjoyable performance. And for the record, it makes a delicious Pegu as well. An Aviation Gin Pegu is lighter and less bracing than one made with a Bombay Sapphire or Beefeater’s. I’d suggest it as a good choice of gin for a Pegu with dinner.

The Liquor Fairy Was Here!
The following product, Aviation Gin was recently provided to me as promotional consideration to encourage me to discuss it.
For a complete disclosure of my policies regarding promotional items and all other financial interests, please click this link, or follow the Liquor Fairy link in the header of this page.

By the way, should you be interested in learning about the lore of the class of cocktails known as the Rickey, you can read my latest post over at the Mixosoleum, entitled Hey, Rickey!

The Aviation is a great drink to serve to people who are fond of telling you “I don’t like gin.” It tends to go down far better than a slap upside their head as you yell, “Well, it’s about time you learned to like it, you . . .”
—Gary Regan

This is from Gary’s latest article, Ten Essential Cocktails You Can Make at Home, in SFGate. Good wisdom, but it goes even better when applied to the Pegu!

I wrote this post before reading the comments. As usual with cocktail articles on SFGate, there are some stunningly, entertainingly stupid things said in the comments that need, um, reasoned correction. Fly my winged monkeys! Fly!

Since this is a quote post, I’ll include my favorite two here:

Yikes, where’d you dig up these trashy oldies?

and this gem, from someone who clearly hasn’t the slightest f’n idea who the hell he is dealing with:

The author obviously does not know how to make a martini. If you included this much dry vermouth in a martini to anyone who “knows” the drink, it would be rejected.

Beefeater has a new product, called Beefeater 24, which is rolling out here in United States pretty much as I write this. It does not appear that the State of Ohio in its infinite wisdom has added 24 to its May 2009 price list, so I guess the good news is that there unaccountably remains room for improvement in my state’s available liquor offerings. However, the good folks at Beefeater had sufficient faith in their product to submit two bottles to the harsh and demanding standards of the Pegu Blog for review.
Let’s start with the bottle. The silhouette has the same square shape of the classic Beefeater bottle, and the color scheme is the same red and black and gold. But the 24 bottle is embossed all over with lovely designs that suggest the botanicals of gin. The label is smaller and missing the eponymous protector of the Tower of London. The square divot under the bottle is colored a brilliant red and practically seems to glow, even when not lit from underneath. It is a gorgeous bottle, and I stuck one up on my display pillar, rather than stowing it down in the cabinet.
The 24 in Beefeater 24 comes from an additional step in their distilling process. They first steep the aromatics to be used in the base spirits for 24 hours before redistilling them in the more traditional gin fashion. The blend of aromatics is also modified. Distiller Desmond Payne takes his foot off the juniper pedal a tad, while adding in a touch of tea. The idea, I believe, is to produce a fuller, more integrated set of flavors.
So, do they succeed?
Yes. On several levels.
Beefeater 24 is a rich, delicious gin that succeeds in having both big flavor and a mild edge in the same bottle. From the pricing, Beefeater seems to want 24 to compete heads up with Tank Ten and Sapphire as a premium, mainline gin. From the taste, I’d say they will succeed. Unlike a lot of other recently introduced premium gins, 24 is a gin first and foremost. Products like Hendrick’s and Whitley Neill, both of which I love and buy regularly, are oddball gins. Whether you call them infused (perhaps a redundancy) or exotics, they are special purpose liquors, and you can’t count on them working in just any general gin recipe you pull from a hat.
I could tell from the beginning that 24 would be the kind of gin that you can safely, indeed happily, apply to any recipe that just says gin. My experiments with it from the first try (and I have enjoyed those experiments) have borne out this assumption. While some with better palates than me can identify them, to me the teas in the 24 do not announce themselves as, Hey! We’ve got some tea in here! They seem to me to simply enhance the essential gin-ness of the liquor. But not the ginny-ness, if you understand me. If you don’t I can’t figure out a better way to say it.
Of course, for me the most important test of any gin is how it works in a Pegu, and how it compares to my baseline favorite in that cocktail, Bombay Sapphire. 24 is a great Pegu gin. The Pegu rubs a lot of the edges off any gin, of course, which gives you a better feel for the subtler flavors, if any, the gin you are using brings to the table. A Sapphire Pegu is the bigger, more floral of the two, while the 24 Pegu is crisper, more citrusy, and just plain fresh. It has been forever since I’ve posted the basic Pegu recipe here, so I’ll use the occasion of reviewing this super gin to correct that:

If Pegus aren’t your thing, consider getting treatment. But in the mean time, I can tell you that the 24 has been very successful for me in such varied cocktails as the absinthe heavy version of the Corpse Reviver #2, my own berry-rific Blue Beetle #2, and the classic Vesper. Also, while I don’t much drink the basic Martini myself, I can report that a guest of mine this weekend who has been a Tanqueray Ten fan since its introduction was very taken with the 24 Martini I served her.
The general conclusion is this: Beefeater 24 will absolutely replace basic Beefeater as my go to gin when I need a plain (in the best sense of that word) gin. It is a worthy competitor to Bombay Sapphire, and I would suggest that once 24 is available where you are, you should keep it on hand as part of your arsenal of essentials.

I’ve been fascinated for a while with the concept of the four bedrock drinks of cocktailia. Each is based on one of the four foundation spirits upon which classic drinking lore is laid: Gin, Bourbon, Rum, and Brandy. I refer to these cocktails as The Four Gospels. I’m not sure if I made this up, or if I read it elsewhere. I suspect I read it elsewhere, as I ain’t that clever usually.
This post is about the Gospel of Gin, the troublesome Martini.
If there is a Gospel of Gospels, it is the Martini. It is an order of magnitude more popular the the other three Gospels combined. That triangular glass, with its crystal clear contents and light frost on the outside is the icon of cool in cocktails, perhaps the icon of cool, period. The very name, Martini, is almost synonymous in the laity’s mind with the very concept of cocktail. And that is the challenge it presents.
If the Manhattan has changed the least from the time of its invention, the Martini has changed the most. Its exact origins are shrouded in significant mystery. Success has many fathers. Given the Martini’s success, it is not surprising that it mother appeared to have gotten around a bit. Trying to figure out the truth is like watching the first half of Mama Mia. All we know for sure is that it was invented in the United States, and the first one mixed would be unrecognizable to the average modern Martini drinker.
Warning, do not watch the following video if you are susceptible to earworms.

Let us consider a pretty representative base Martini recipe, as it has been slowly codified over time:

There you go. Possibly the simplest, most elegant cocktail recipe there is. The resulting drink is complex, flavorful, and visually stunning in its elegant simplicity. There is a reason that this is the most popular cocktail in history.
Quality of gin in a Martini is of paramount importance. Like all the Gospels, it lovingly features all the magic of its base spirit. If you use bad gin, it will lovingly feature the badness, so don’t go there. Likewise, the vermouth plays an important role in a properly made Martini. Though some find huge variations in quality of various brands, most drinkers will be happy with any reasonable vermouth… as long as it is fresh. Unlike gin and other liquors, Vermouth is a wine. It does go bad once opened, not as quickly as regular wine, but it does get flat and stale. For the home bar, you should buy your vermouth in small bottles, and store them in the refrigerator.
Like the Daiquiri, the Martini can be subjected to a fair amount of interpretation and still be considered the gospel truth. Unlike the Daiquiri, these modifications are less about the players, and more about how they are arranged.
The first main variant is the garnish. The classic image of the Martini has that lovely green olive, nestled at the bottom of the glass, or impaled upon an artistic skewer. It imparts a little briny taste to the drink, especially at the end, as well as providing a tasty snack mid drink, for those who can stomach the darn things. But of equal canonical legitimacy is the long twist of lemon. This is my favorite, by the way. The lemon oil adds a brighter, fresher accent to the drink than the olive brine. And if you or your bartender have some skill with the knife, the long, luxurious, curling peel, nestled in the glass or crawling over the edge, provides a sophisticated yet whimsical image. Um, don’t do both. It won’t taste or look right.
The next question regards bitters: Do you add them? I do, but opinion is divided. A few drops or even a good dash of bitters, usually orange but Angostura works too, will add another harmonious dimension to this already complex drink. It does add a bit to the degree of difficulty, however. Not in making, but in drinking. It is probably better to omit the bitters for those who are just beginning to plumb the depth of this cocktail.
Lastly, you may play with the ratio of gin to vermouth. I like four to one, but that is truly just me. It should be somewhere from 2-1 (almost no one goes this far anymore), to seven or eight to one. The higher the ratio of gin to vermouth, the dryer your Martini is considered, and the more expensive and high quality your gin had better damn well be.
Beyond that, we start to get into the heresies of the Martini, which are legion.
We begin with the the question of dryness. Many bars, bartenders, and home mixers today will simply omit the vermouth in a misguided quest for dryness. A Martini with all gin and no vermouth is not a Martini. It is, get this, a glass of cold gin. No one in their right mind goes around calling for a round of shots of gin. Yet we see people all the time ordering and consuming giant, oversized shots of gin and calling them Martinis. Do. Not. Do. This.
But beyond that are the self-deluding heretics that subscribe to the wash method, or the super high ratio. The wash is simply rinsing the glass or the ice with vermouth and pouring off whatever does not stick. You get similar results with the super high ratio method, where you creep into the 15-1 range. These drinks all should be more properly called Montgomerys. This arrangement is named for British field marshal Montgomery, who was known to the Americans as the leader who would not attack without at least a 15-1 advantage in troops, and known to the French as the most crazy brave leader in military history…. Sadly, today you are more likely to get a Montgomery than a Martini in most places unless you take your bartender firmly in hand.
Next we have are those drinkers who order up a Martini with five, seven, or more olives. This is not a Martini. It’s a meal.
And some folks like their Martinis on the rocks. No. You know, I suppose that for some tastes…. No. Just no.
The heresies only get bigger from here folks. Here’s a phrase you’ve heard before: Shaken, not stirred. Bond may have made the Martini cool (or more likely the Martini made Bond cool), but this is not the right way to make a Martini. While I do not buy the idea that shaking bruises gin, at least one source that I respect states that shaking will bruise the vermouth. (Not using vermouth? Heretic!)
More to the point, shaking will cloud your Martini, leaving bubbles and shards of ice to mar its crystalline perfection. I am in general a shaking proponent for most drinks, craving the greater coldness you usually get, but for the Martini it is better to take the time (a lot of time) to properly chill the drink with gentle stirring.
An even bigger heresy than that of shaking is the heresy of vodka. Before we go a step further, allow me to raise my hand and state for the Inquisition that, My name is Doug, and I’m a Vodka Martini heretic. A Vodka Martini (note the capitalization?) is a different drink. It is not a Martini, folks! It is a much less challenging, more accessible, less interesting, and currently more popular cocktail. Here’s the difference between the two in pictures:

Imagine if you will the Vodka Martini (left), versus the (gin) Martini (right)

Worth a thousand words, no?
Lastly, we come to the greatest heresy of all, the one that infects otherwise great bars all across the land. Dark are the times, and fear walks among the women and children. I speak of the Cosmopolitan Martini, or the Appletini, or the Blueberry Mango Martini, or any of a hundred thousand other concoctions, most made with vodka, and all served in a Martini glass.
Stop! Stop right there, or you had best expect the Spanish Inquisition.
These drinks are not Martinis. Many of them can only charitably be called cocktails. The definition of Martini is in no way, shape, or form, an alcoholic beverage served ‘up’ in a triangular cross-sectioned glass. The glass itself is a cocktail glass, not a Martini glass. Even if it has a real Martini in it, it is not a Martini glass.
Pant. Pant. Pant. Whew, I’m worn out from all the righteous indignation!
The Martini is a magnificent cocktail. A cocktail to which modern cocktail culture, most drinks, and frankly most bars, owe their existence. It deserves respect and knowledge. It isn’t for everyone. The last thing that distinguishes Martinis is how many people really don’t like them, or think they don’t. I really don’t prefer them myself (see confession above). But they are a marvelous cocktail, filled with history, and the best way to showcase most fine gins. Treat them well.

Thus endeth Martini, The Book of Gin.
Here are the other posts here relating to the Four Gospels of the Cocktail:
The Daiquiri, The Book of Rum
The Manhattan, The Book of Whiskey
The Sidecar, The Book of Brandy

I know it is Tiki Month, but I think the following old magazine article which is circulating once again is a refreshing and amusing word from the Strict Constructionist wing of Cocktailia. The writer is a well-known political figure and speaks of other such critters in the piece. I’m redacting any specifics for two reasons:

• Since it’s Tiki Month, I’ve got lots of overproof booze lying around, and a flame war could have devastating consequences.
• With no names named, you can see how much of this advice will apply to you, yes, you personally, in any circumstance where your guy or gal is not the one currently running the country (or your office) (or your team).

The subject is the Martini. Let us start with its value:

How can we forget, how can we take the edge off our pain…? Different strategies will occur, but one of the most promising is the judicious use of alcohol. One cannot, of course, begin the forgetting process at breakfast and continue through the day, since that would have devastating effects on one’s career, marriage, and liver. The tactic is definitely recommended, however, for the early evening hours when, as you zap around the TV channels, you are all too likely to come without warning upon (the news). That can be a nasty shock to your nervous system. If you have not prepared yourself in advance, it will be too late to avoid the damage and you will totter off to bed to lie awake staring into the dark or to toss fitfully dreaming of (the horror). Just the right amount of alcohol taken at the right time will, however, enable you to see the humor in (your situation), and to fall asleep congratulating yourself on having risen above despair.

See? Universal truth.
Beyond this point, it gets a bit sticky. There is definitely room for disagreement. Our intrepid author dismisses wine as an acceptable antidote, and rejects Bourbon and Scotch as too sweet and insufficiently bracing. I’m not sure I agree. If the President just signed a particularly egregious bill, or that moron of a manager sent the runner from second with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, Brown Liquor is the only remedy. Seriously. Oh, and he acts as if beer does not exist. His choice was the Dry Martini. It is valuable for us to remember there was a day, not so long ago, where the Martini was an endangered species, and this piece was written in that period.
I refer to the author as a strict constructionist because of his take on the basic nature of the Godfather of Cocktails:

Well, then, what is the description of the proper, indeed the perfect, martini? There is in this matter, as on every serious subject, a number of heresies. In the first place, a drink made with vodka is not a martini. A martini means gin. Second, olives are to be eschewed, except by people who think a martini is a type of salad.

Finally, the martini must be straight up. I recall once seeing a martini “on the rocks” and murmuring, “Oh, the horror, the horror!” Insofar as “on the rocks” indicates a form of bankruptcy, it is a perfectly accurate description of gin and vermouth on ice. There should be some small amount of water in a martini (that is inevitable in the chilling process and makes the drink smoother), but when it is served on the rocks, the amount of water keeps increasing, depriving the martini of its special tang.

As he goes on toward greater and greater detail, I find more to quibble with. For someone so sure of themselves, he is remarkably confused as to the proper ratio of vermouth, and he gets the composition and history of the Montgomery a bit muddled. He also commits the ultimate heresy of stating that a martini should be sipped slowly, over time. A drink must be consumed swiftly, while it is laughing at you, no?
I’ll offer a hat tip and a smackdown to Gabriel Malor, a co-blogger over at Ace of Spades, who brought this to my attention. (Gabriel is a lawyer incidentally, and while I don’t usually hold that against him, the earthquake that struck while he was taking the Bar really should have told him something.) He criticizes our intrepid author’s choice of gins. Beefeater is a good mixing gin, Gabriel, but don’t go putting it above Sapphire for martinis. Or in general, for that matter. You don’t want that I should sick your soul-brother in snark upon you….

OK, I’ve got to admit that I had never had Beefeater’s Gin before. In the 1990’s, I only served and drank cocktails at parties, and that meant putting out bottles of booze and mixers, with a bucket of ice. I didn’t like or understand Gin, so I usually just bought whatever was third cheapest on the shelf. No one I knew drank it either, and one bottle of Gin usually lasted as long as five of anything else. With the turn of the Millenium, I got into cocktails. But I only started buying Gin to make Pegus, and then primarily Bombay Sapphire. Since then, especially since I started blogging, I’ve tried various Gins to expand my horizons, but almost always either new brands, or higher-end brands, and usually both. But I was in the liquor store the other day and found myself looking at Beefeater’s bottle. The first thing I noticed was it was new! The edges of the bottle are much sharper now, and the Royal Guard on the label is more modern looking.

Umm, Dude. They did the new packaging in January 2007. Where have you been, Mr. High and Mighty Mixologist?

Sue me. As I said, the last year or so, as I’ve been expanding my horizons, I’ve been snootily looking up the shelf from Bombay Sapphire, not down.
Anyway, the new packaging did its job, since it caught my attention and I thought I really ought to give a shot to the brand that back in the day my Dad thought was too premium to drink.
Of course, there is only one deciding test for a Gin, make a Pegu with it.
I gave it the full treatment: Fresh Lime, careful measures, new bottle of Angustora Bitters. And what did I taste? A remarkably good drink.
The Beefeater made for an extremely crisp and clean tasting cocktail. The bitter citruses sang through clearly in the Pegu, while the juniper and herbal tones of the Beefeater filled in the holes for a nice, complete cocktail. Like Sapphire, Beefeater offers no distinctive or competing elements, like some other Gins do. Sapphire adds a few more complementary elements than Beefeater, but whether you want those is a matter either of taste or simply mood. Sometimes, to extend the musical metaphor, you’d rather listen to a string quartet than to a full orchestra.
I think I’ll be keeping Beefeater’s on hand. I’ll use it in Pegus when I’m tired or hot, and want a slightly more refreshing drink. And I’ll also use it when trying new cocktails that look like the Gin is foundation, rather than feature. I’m guessing it’ll be splendid in a Corpse Reviver, but too plain for my Blue Beetle #2.
A final thought for you. The Beefeater’s website is worth a visit. It is stylish, fun, and actually has some interesting facts about the Gin (it’s the only London Gin actually made in London anymore), and the usual line up of tasty ways to feature the product. But the funnest part of the site is simply its look and operation. Have fun with the website, and especially the Gin!

James Bond: Cocktailian

OK, I am a giant sucker for James Bond. And I’ve found quite bit to like about nearly all the Bonds.

Nearly all?
In other words, George Lazenby need not apply?

Exactly. But that said, I’m really liking the new James Bond series reboot that they started with Casino Royale, and are continuing with Quantum of Solace. And as a cocktailian, I truly appreciate the screen Bond’s return to Gin in his drinks, and the Vesper cocktail in particular. I’m going to start with a short review of the latest film because, well, I can. I’ll try to avoid much in the way of spoilers, but you can scan down past the big picture below if you want to skip the review and get on with the drinky stuff.

Quantum is unique in the Bond oeuvre in that it is a direct sequel. The movie begins right after the end of Casino Royale, and I mean right after—as in probably less than an hour after. Much of the plot and character arc (yes, James Bond has character arcs these days) reference Casino Royale in detail, to the point that if you haven’t seen that film, I doubt this one will make a lot of sense.
The film revolves around Bond and MI-6’s discovery and investigation of Quantum, the shadowy organization of evil capitalist pigs who seem to be replacing SPECTRE in the Bond world. This is the group fronted by Mr. Whyte in Casino Royale, and centered on Mr. Greene in this one. Hmmm. There might be a theme developing here.
Mr. Greene is in many was an Al Gore figure: He is a celebrity world traveller who spends much of his time calling people’s attention to the disastrous effects of climate change on our planet, and being lionized for his efforts. He also makes vast amounts of money off of his activities. Finally, he is capable of oilily charming banter and acts of astounding evil (and acts of astoundingly oily evil). That last comparison is ridiculous of course. Al Gore is not remotely capable of charm.
Interestingly, the female lead, Olga Kurylenko, is not a love interest at all for Bond. She is instead a mirror in which he sees himself as the film develops. She is a protegé of sorts, and a weapon, for Bond. Don’t worry guys, she is also ridiculously hot. Some things, the Bond family does not screw with. Bond in fact beds only one woman in this film (I guess we all hit dry spells), but he does otherwise show the uncanny Bondian ability to get women to do anything for him with little more than a smile. This is more believable than usual with Daniel Craig, when you consider how definite yet reticent women are when discussing him in front of their husbands….
The gadgetry is low-key and largely believable. I can see MI-6 having computers like the ones in this movie. (Sorry David Caruso, but I do not believe the Miami-Dade Crime Lab having such computers) The car and boat chase scenes are fantastic, and all centered on Bond’s fantastic skill, luck and titanic titanium balls, rather than Q Division’s street-modding. The cinematography in the fight scenes gets a little chaotic, but the fights themselves are adrenalin drenched and fun. The climax has everything a Bond movie is supposed to have, including the question of why evil people persist in building isolated facilities designed to blow up so magnificently.
Go see the movie if you ever liked any Bond flick.

One of the most interesting parts of the reboot of the Bond series, starting with Casino, is what Bond drinks. Gone is the Vodka Martini please, shaken-not stirred. Lifting straight from the books, Bond invents his own cocktail while playing in the Casino Royale. He names it the Vesper, in honor of his lady love. Unlike the book Bond, who never drank one again after she dies, Craig continues, drinking six in one of the cooler cocktail venues you will likely never get to enjoy yourself.
The Vesper is a simple cocktail, but one most bars today will be unable to make.

True to the books, Bond specifies Gordon’s for the Gin. I use Sapphire because a) I have lots of it in my inventory, and b) it is higher proof. James Bond hates low caliber ammunition, and Gordon’s is lower proof now than when Casino Royale the novel was written. I have tried Vespers with more esoteric Gins such as Whitley Neill and Hendricks. The Vesper is a case where these liquors are a bad idea. It is a remarkably balanced drink and flinging cucumbers, rose petals, or baobab into the mix just makes for chaos.
I use Sobieski for the Vodka, but I suppose a sturdy British Vodka like Tanqueray Sterling would fit the bill to a T. Just use a Vodka that you won’t notice. It is in the drink merely to dilute the botanicals in the Gin.
The Lillet Blanc is where you will lose most bartenders. The bartender in Quantum of Solace actually goes out of his way to define Lillet. A French aperitif that is not Vermouth, he says emphatically, collecting a handsome product placement fee for the producers of the film.
I started drinking these on a lark when Casino came out, but I find I really really like this cocktail. As I said, it is remarkably balanced. It also helps with my cocktailian self-respect, as I still cannot drink Gin Martinis. If you can’t either, try a Vesper or two instead. The Vodka reduces the impact of Juniper & Co. without diluting the alcohol, and the Lillet is a slightly different compliment to the party than Vermouth.
Plus, it allows you to be a Bond weenie, while sounding sophisticated. Any bartender who works somewhere that actually carries Lillet is going to cringe at anyone ordering a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. Order a Vesper, and you’ll still be a fanboy, but one who knows his stuff.

Hey, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I actually came up with a more than passable cocktail of (mostly) my own devising. As all eight of my regular readers know, The Pegu Blog is not replete with original recipes. I do try to make up a new concoction from time to time, but I seldom blog about the resulting beverages because they usually lack a certain something… a certain… what shall I call it… Ah yes! A desire to say Oh, that was good! I’d like another!
However, I’ve been in the kitchen a bit lately, preparing possible ingredients for MxMo XXXIII: Made From Scratch, coming to you here and on better blogs across the cocktailosphere in November. And, while blueberry syrup doesn’t really qualify for MxMo (there being no commercial equivalent that I know of), I made some up, according to Alton Brown’s recipe. Even if you don’t like my cocktail idea below, the blueberry soda you can make with this stuff is worth it on its own. It’s quite easy to whip up, but the recipe is a bit long to reproduce here.
My initial intent, when I finished the syrup, was to try it as a substitute for fresh berries in Jacob Grier’s Blue Beetle. But I started having creative thoughts. Instead of lying down until the sensation went away, I thought about how I could riff on Jacob’s recipe.
Here is the original:

Most of the world does not have St. Germaine lying around, of course. I do, but that’s irrelevant. I decided to go with Gin, instead of the vodka and St. Germaine. The muddled blueberries and simple syrup became my blueberry cordial. The resulting drink was much darker and brighter in color than Jacob’s, and with a more in your face flavor. But it was a little flat, and I felt it needed just one more note. Rather than going with Orange Flower Water, I tried two heavy shakes of Fee Brother’s Lemon Bitters. This worked like a charm. I had produced an attractive, tasty cocktail!
Now I just hope someone out there tries one too!
So, with a nod to the Corpse Reviver family of drinks, I give you the…