Reporting For Duty
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
Did Bond influence you to start smoking and/or drinking ?
For me,he certainly did influence me to try out drinking when i was younger,although i think it was always inside me anyway due to being half Irish hahaha !!
Smoking though,no not at all.I knew the risks of it and with no pleasure to it at all compared to drinking, so i have never smoked and never will.
I do drink a lot but i enjoy it ,especially watching a 007 flick.
How about you lot ? :D
Smoking though,no not at all.I knew the risks of it and with no pleasure to it at all compared to drinking, so i have never smoked and never will.
I do drink a lot but i enjoy it ,especially watching a 007 flick.
How about you lot ? :D
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Hahaha totally agree with that,however there is a difference between wanting to and getting a smack in the gob from a girl when you try to !!
Happily life as a Bond aficionado has taught me the importance of seduction!
I smoked because the girl I was in love was did and drinking has never featured heavy on my agenda. I quit smoking when my daughter was born.
I do not think that 007 in books or movies influenced me at all, simply because they are entertainment.
And (on a sidenote...), Bond's taste in alcohol has never impressed me that much. Is it just me? All through the novels he seems to drink champagne... with everything... no matter what the food, mr Bond drinks champagne... It's not really that sophisticated. Expensive sure, but not sophisticated. I know there are exceptions to the rule, but in those cases I usually disagree with his choises. Like when he eats smoked salmon in Moonraker, and chooses... vodka?? What's the thought behind that?
And the "Vesper drink" which I guess is what it's known as today, is really not that good. I believe I have heard from somewhere that Fleming even admitted he just made it up while writing (not the drink "Vodka Martini" of course, but the now very famous measurements), and later tasted it, realising he didn't like. Something like that...
To be fair on behalf of mister Fleming, I guess it was more difficult to sample vines in the 30s, 40s and 50s than it is today. But champagne with everything?
Although I must admit I did rather like the Players packaging, having read Thunderball long before I entered my reprobate late-teenage years, although no one else in our pack knew or cared about such 007 book trivia. If I tried to tell the story, eyes would glaze over, so that didn't last.
Players though was a very popular brand in its own right, with us teenage males. We smoked PlayersLight of course, as a gesture towards "moderation" I guess. Ony hardcore smoked full strength Players. Scary dudes.
As for booze, I was weened on steady diet of domestic beer and not much else. Nowadays I like sampling more sophisticated Bond drinks, although book-Bond, not terribly sophisticated really, seems to live on a steady diet of whiskey, bourbon, vodka-martinis and of course champagne. But Fleming's Bond generally drank good booze.
Compare Bond with say Steed in the Avengers. Bond is a tough guy, serious boozer, who handles the hard stuff.
Steed although very capable, is more bowler-hatted, umbrella-wielding, very cultured sort. Steed likes his expensive brandy and champagne.
;)
Seriously, though, shaking is the best approach for vodka martinis where super cold temps are desirable because warm vodka tastes funky. The colder the better, and shaking produces cold better than stirring.
With gin martinis, it's just the opposite. I stir these because gin has all sorts of botanicals which can be "damaged" and produce off flavors during agitation. A stirred gin martini, on the other hand, is just the thing and quite a delight when the gin is good.
No for drinking. I was happily drinking as a young teen, Bond or no Bond (first Ripple at a friend's house, then graduated to finer things than Ripple), and I still drink occasionally. Wine maybe twice a month, sort of like that. I don't get out to anywhere where cocktails are usually served. Kind of rare, but I do enjoy that sometimes. Hmmm. So no influence except now when I order a mojito, champagne, or martini I do think of Bond, probably nearly every time. And Bond films have probably influenced me more with my style of drinking, how to drink with elan and confidence, how to hold a glass correctly or seductively (not saying I have perfected this by any means). :D
@birdleson Smoking binges. That's radical. I couldn't do that. Took me almost two years to quit when I finally got around to making the effort. Haven't relapsed since and never will. Occasional cigars I find don't make any difference. Puffing on a pricey cuban stogie doesn't make one return to the "fags"
@4everbonded The Japanese haven't turned you into a sake drinker?
I do love a traditional gin martini. With the biggest, fattest olives. Yum! And yes, stirring is mandatory for that one so as not to "bruise" the gin due to the botanicals, as Perilagu_Khan mentioned. I think it's juniper. I even like its smell, and I do take a touch of vermouth in mine.
Of course warm vodka tastes rancid, as mentioned by @Perilagu_Khan. Which is why my first experience with vodka martinis tasted some, erm, peculiar.
Now it's Guinness all the way. Cider gives me heartburn and lager tastes like vomit, so my choice is rather limited.
The first time I smoked, (disliked the way it tastes, so never took it up), I had an image of Sean Connery in Dr No. Unfortunately, I wasn't as suave as him, choking on my ciggy. ;-)
About Bond's tastes in alcohol, I never thought they were sophisticated, not in Fleming anyway. In the movies, they turned Bond's latent alcoholism into caricatural snobbery.
I like how in Bond's universe, those things are perfectly acceptable. But in real life, I'm fully aware that, unlike Bond, I'm not indestructible myself.
"I like sake!" Sean Connery, with look of eager anticipation, in YOLT.