It should come as no surprise that Ian Fleming and James Bond were devotees of this classic cocktail. In its simplicity, it is a drink in which the choice of ingredients is paramount. In Live and Let Die, Bond is careful to specify his choice of whiskey: Old Grand-Dad, a traditional bourbon with a high rye content. Here, it takes on the character of its base spirit; the sugar, bitters and orange zest are simply base notes. To find the version you like, choose a whiskey that you like to drink unadulterated, but feel free to experiment with any aged spirit: rum and Scotch work particularly well.
4 dashes of Angostura bitters
2 dashes of orange bitters
1½ teaspoons rich demerara syrup (see here)
60ml (2¼fl oz) bourbon or rye whiskey
TO GARNISH
orange twist
Measure the bitters, sugar syrup and one-third of the whiskey into a rocks glass with 2 ice cubes. Stir until the ice cubes have halved in size. Add another one-third of the whiskey with 2 more ice cubes and stir until these have also halved in size. Add the remaining whiskey and fill the glass to the top with ice. Stir until the liquid is ice-cold and dilution has brought the level of the drink near the top of the glass. Garnish with an orange twist, spritzed over the glass to express the oils.
NOTE: if you are pushed for time or are making multiple cocktails, use a mixing glass to stir the drink down with sugar syrup and bitters, and then strain into a frosted rocks glass over ice cubes or an ice chunk.
FLEMING ON . . . BOURBON
James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.
GOLDFINGER
CHAPTER 1. REFLECTIONS IN A DOUBLE BOURBON
At least another ten minutes before Transamerica would be called. He signalled to a waitress and ordered another double bourbon on the rocks. When the wide, chunky glass came, he swirled the liquor round for the ice to blunt it down and swallowed half of it.
GOLDFINGER
CHAPTER 1. REFLECTIONS IN A DOUBLE BOURBON
Bond had forgotten his drink. He picked it up and, tilting his head back, swallowed the bourbon to the last drop. The ice tinkled cheerfully against his teeth. That was it. That was an idea. He would spend the night in Miami and get drunk, stinking drunk so that he would have to be carried to bed by whatever tart he had picked up. He hadn’t been drunk for years. It was high time.
GOLDFINGER
CHAPTER 1. REFLECTIONS IN A DOUBLE BOURBON
He walked home with the crowds, had a shower and some sleep and then found his way to a restaurant near the sales ring and spent an hour drinking the drink that Leiter had told him was fashionable in racing circles – bourbon and branch water. Bond guessed that in fact the water was from the tap behind the bar, but Leiter had said that real bourbon drinkers insist on having their whisky in the traditional style, with water from high up in the branch of the local river where it will be purest. The barman didn’t seem surprised when he asked for it, and Bond was amused at the conceit. Then he ate an adequate steak and, after a final bourbon, walked over to the sales ring, which Leiter had fixed as a rendezvous.
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
CHAPTER 11. “SHY SMILE”
“I shall need a drink if we’re going to talk,” said Bond.
Mr Spang eyed him coldly. “Get him a drink, Wint.”
Bond half turned his head. “Bourbon and branch water,” he said. “Half and half.”
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
CHAPTER 19. SPECTREVILLE
Bond felt a pang of jealousy. He walked over to the bar and ordered himself a bourbon and branch water to celebrate the five thousand dollars in his pocket.
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
CHAPTER 17. “THANKS FOR THE RIDE”
The best drink in the day is just before the first one (the Red Stripe didn’t count). James Bond put ice in the glass and three fingers of the bourbon and swilled it round the glass to cool it and break it down with the ice. He pulled a chair up to the window, put a low table beside it, took Profiles in Courage by Jack Kennedy out of his suitcase, happened to open it at Edmund G. Ross (“I looked down into my open grave”), then went and sat down, letting the scented air, a compound of sea and trees, breathe over his body, naked save for the underpants. He drank the bourbon down in two long draughts and felt its friendly bite at the back of his throat and in his stomach. He filled up his glass again, this time with more ice to make it a weaker drink, and sat back and thought about Scaramanga.
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
CHAPTER 7. UN-REAL ESTATE
Back in his hotel, Bond took a shower, swallowed a double Bourbon Old Fashioned and threw himself down on his bed.
THUNDERBALL
CHAPTER 14. SOUR MARTINIS
The conductor arrived at the same time as the Pullman attendant. Bond ordered Old Fashioneds, and stipulated “Old Grandad” bourbon, chicken sandwiches, and decaffeined “Sanka” coffee so that their sleep would not be spoilt.
LIVE AND LET DIE
CHAPTER 10. THE SILVER PHANTOM