After dropping out of Sandhurst Military Academy, Ian Fleming was sent by his mother to Austria to learn French and German in the hope he might become a diplomat. Fleming was a keen climber and skier and used his experiences in the mountains of Kitzbühel as inspiration for many scenes in his writing. The Avalanche cocktail is a tribute to Ian Fleming’s love of the mountains. The base is an unusual but stunning white Armagnac, a blend of the very best unaged eaux de vie with all the sleek unctuousness you would expect of a grape distillate. This silkiness is tempered with the crisp bite of white crème de menthe. Fresh mint leaves bring the brightness of the Alpine air and fruity, spicy tonka bean syrup wraps the drink in a sweet and soothing blanket, the ideal end to a long day on the slopes. If tonka is unavailable, ¼ vanilla pod makes a passable substitute.
60ml (2¼fl oz) Chateau de Laubade Blanche Armagnac (or other Armagnac)
15ml (½fl oz) white crème de menthe
2 teaspoons tonka bean syrup
10 mint leaves
1 dash of Angostura bitters
FOR THE TONKA BEAN SYRUP, MAKES 125ML (4FL OZ)
¼ tonka bean, chopped (or ¼ vanilla pod)
125ml (4fl oz) simple syrup (see here)
TO GARNISH
mint sprigs
dark chocolate, grated
To make the tonka bean syrup, infuse the chopped tonka bean in the simple syrup for 2 hours, then strain.
To make the cocktail, measure the ingredients directly into a high tumbler over crushed ice and stir well. Garnish with mint sprigs and grated dark chocolate.
THE AVALANCHE
“Difficult to ski? But my dear fellow, surely it can’t be difficult to ski? One just skis. One falls over or one doesn’t fall over. It’s as simple as that.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH RALPH ARNOLD
The ground shook violently under Bond’s skis and the swelling rumble came down to him like the noise of express trains roaring through a hundred tunnels. God Almighty, now he really had had it! What was the rule? Point the skis straight downhill! Try and race it! Bond pointed his skis down towards the tree line, got down in his ugly crouch and shot, his skis screaming, into white space.
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE
CHAPTER 17. BLOODY SNOW
The wind of his speed was building up into a great wall in front of him, trying to knock him off balance. Behind him the giant roar of the mountain seemed to be gaining. Other, smaller cracks sounded high up among the crags. The whole bloody mountain was on the move! If he beat the gigantic mass of hurtling snow to the tree line, what comfort would he find there? Certainly no protection until he was deep in the wood. The avalanche would snap perhaps the first hundred yards of firs down like match-sticks.
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE
CHAPTER 17. BLOODY SNOW
What did one do when the avalanche hit? There was only one rule. Get your hands to your boots and grip your ankles. Then, if you were buried, there was some hope of undoing your skis, being able, perhaps, to burrow your way to the surface – if you knew in your tomb where the surface lay! If you couldn’t go down like a ball, you would end up immovable, a buried tangle of sticks and skis at all angles. Thank God the opening at the end of the glade, the shimmer of the last, easily sloping fields before the finish, was showing up! The crackling roar behind him was getting louder! How high would the wall of snow be? Fifty feet? A hundred? Bond reached the end of the glade and hurled himself into a right-hand Christie. It was his last hope, to get below the wide belt of trees and pray that the avalanche wouldn’t mow down the lot of them. To stay in the path of the roaring monster at his heels would be suicide!
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE
CHAPTER 17. BLOODY SNOW
Fleming went to the Tennerhof school in Kitzbühel in the Austrian Tyrol, run by former spy Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis and his wife, the celebrated novelist, Phyllis Bottome. The Forbes Dennises encouraged him to read widely and to write, support for which he was eternally grateful: “Without their careful praise, heaven knows where I should be”.
During his time as a young man in Kitzbühel, Fleming trekked down a slope that had been closed as it was judged a high avalanche risk. When an avalanche broke out behind him, he found himself in a thrilling chase to beat the tidal wave of snow. The experience went on to inspire the avalanche scene in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Fleming loved to climb the mountains surrounding Kitzbühel and would often spend a couple of nights in alpine huts. He called upon this experience in his short story Octopussy, in which Bond avenges the death of a Kitzbühel mountain guide.
Fleming gave his friends walk-on roles in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Sir George Dunbar, Mr Whitney and Lady Daphne Straight, who had spent Christmas with Fleming in St Moritz, Switzerland, just before he wrote the book, appear in the restaurant at the top of a ski-run. Fleming enjoyed engineering cameos for real people, and the first-ever Bond girl to feature in the films is also mentioned in this scene: “And that beautiful girl with the long hair at the big table, that is Ursula Andress, the film star. What a wonderful tan she has!”
The James Bond films often featured dramatic ski scenes, most recently in Spectre in 2015, but perhaps most famously in the 1969 adaptation of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring George Lazenby as agent 007.