



GLASS



Cocktail glass





PREPARATION



Pull out a cocktail glass from the freezer and pour the gin, vodka and apéritif in a shaker with plenty of ice. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold. Strain into your cocktail glass and add a large slice of lemon peel.





NOTES



If the Enlightenment is appreciated by today's historians as the beginning of the age of ideas - ideas shaping reality - then future historians will look with delight at the twentieth century, an age in which such fine things as the Vesper cocktail are invented by fictional characters in films and books. The passage in chapter 7 of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, in which Bond describes its exact preparation, has done more to raise the status of the Martini as an icon of sophistication than any real life personality. The drink remains unbaptised until the next chapter, when Bond meets the enigmatic Vesper Lynd, whose parents named her after the dark and stormy night she was born on ("vesper" is Latin for "evening").



Everything about this Martini is different to the usual dry Martini. It uses both gin and vodka, Kina Lillet instead of dry vermouth, and lemon peel instead of an olive. What's more, two ingredients in this cocktail are no longer made the way they were when Casino Royale was written: Gordon's gin has dropped its alcohol content from 48% to 38%, unless you can find their Yellow Label bottle (also known as Export Strength). Kina Lillet has been renamed to Lillet Blanc and reformulated to taste very different. If Gordon's Yellow Label isn't available where you live, Tanqueray's Nº10 is a great alternative with 47% alcohol. Cocchi Americano is more similar to the original Kina Lillet than Lillet's own Lillet Blanc: it is less sweet and contains many of the bitters (cinchona and gentian) found in the original French apéritif.



