James Bond.”Īt first, I felt vindicated: “It’s not only bad, it’s nonsensical. Surely, everybody would agree that the only people who actually drink Vespers are the same dweebs who point finger guns into the mirror of the tux rental shop while uttering: “The name’s Bond. So when I posed the question- Is the Vesper actually a good drink?-to my friends and followers on Instagram last month, I sat back, smugly anticipating the inevitable snark that was about to flood my DMs.
In fact, Kingsley Amis, author of The James Bond Dossier, a critique of the novels, even went so far as to declare Fleming’s Vesper “the great Martini enormity.” With the Martini cohort assuredly on my side, I felt bolstered in my assumption that the Vesper was a clever literary device and little more.
A Martini is a gin cocktail, the purists claim. Further, the Vesper, with its austere makeup, falls readily into Martini territory, a drink that-more than any other cocktail-is known for its legions of die-hard purists.
