There was a moment at the James Bond-themed Granite Noir cocktail event on Sunday – called Shaken Not Stirred, of course – that was straight out of a spy movie.
The Aberdeen sun was shining directly in the big windows at the new restaurant at His Majesty’s Theatre, where we were all sipping cocktails and listening to James Bond expert Kathyrn Harkup.
To stop everyone squinting, staff pressed the button to lower the automatic blinds.
As the blinds came down, it was as if we had been suddenly thrust into a James Bond villain’s evil lair – just at the moment where he divulges his dastardly plan.
I half expected the tables to flip over to reveal a giant map, complete with miniature oil wells or tiny model factories.
I checked my chair – could it flip me backwards into a fiery pit? A punishment for a perceived slight or sign of disloyalty?
Diving into the world of James Bond
None of this happened. My chair was a regular chair.
The restaurant was in Aberdeen city centre, not a hollowed-out volcano in Japan. The staff, reassuringly, did not wear identical red boiler suits nor was a disembodied voice counting down to zero.
But that I suspected we could be was a mark of how completely Kathryn had brought us into the world of James Bond.
The author, who has a doctorate in chemicals and phosphines, is a huge James Bond fan.
There’s little she doesn’t know about the blockbusting franchise that has been delighting global audiences ever since creator Ian Fleming drew on his own British naval intelligence background to write Casino Royale in 1952.
At the latest count, there have been 25 official James Bond movies and numerous books beyond the dozen or so that Fleming wrote himself.
Their impact has been immense, shaping both the world of actual spying (MI6 says Bond is one of its greatest recruiting tools) and popular culture.
Without Bond there is no Jason Bourne, no Mission Impossible and certainly no Austin Powers.
Bond puts cocktails on the global map
Bond’s influence on alcohol is especially prominent.
Kathryn, then, bases her talk around four of the most famous cocktails in the Bond universe.
First up is the Old Fashioned, which mixes one Fleming’s favourite spirits – Scotch whisky – with bitters and soda water.
Second is the Negroni, a Campari-based cocktail that packs a punch thanks to its gin and vermouth.
Next is an Americano, which is like a long Negroni minus the gin. And our final cocktail is the one that Bond introduced to the world, the Vesper Martini.
In between drinks, Kathryn regales the packed restaurant with stories from the Bond books and movies.
She gives us her scientific opinion on just how authentic the baddies and their world-conquering masterplans are (answer: not very).
There are also deep dives into the difficulties of storing man-eating sharks in a pool and why James Bond had nothing to fear from that laser heading towards his Goldeneyes.
Why Bond doesn’t deal in pink umbrellas
But the cocktails are the true stars, something that Fleming – who shared many of his creation’s passions including booze – would have been proud of.
Indeed, the author’s character is everywhere on our drinks menu for the afternoon.
“Fleming was a snob when it came to food and drink,” Kathryn tells me after her presentation.
That’s why the cocktails are from the more bitter end of the bar rather than something more drinkable like a margarita or pina colada.
Fleming was a big bibliophile and wouldn’t dream of drinking something fruity.
Plus, it would much more difficult to take Bond seriously if he had to nose a pink umbrella out of the way every time he sipped his drink.
“Fleming also knew exactly who he was writing for,” Kathryn continues.
“He was writing for a post-war audience that was just coming out of rationing. So in his books, he would give lengthy descriptions of all the food he was eating and what he was drinking.”
This, then, is why Bond was so particular about the Champagne he drinks, such as the Blanc de Blancs Brut 1943 in Casino Royale.
In what is an early example of food porn, he’s allowing his readers into a secret world that for almost all of them is unattainable.
Scotch is the true hero of the Bond universe
For me, however, the most Bond drink is one that is right on our doorstep here in the north and north-east.
Fleming loved his whisky, and famously gave Bond a Scottish background after Sean Connery played the movie spy to wide acclaim in 1962’s Dr No and the later movies.
But the best description of Bond’s Scotch drinking was not in a Fleming novel.
Instead, it was from Scottish author William Boyd, who in 2013 became one of the many well-known writers to publish an official James Bond ‘continuation’ book that used the Fleming characters in new stories.
Boyd puts Bond in Africa where he is involved in a civil war in the fictional country of Zanzarim.
During a moment of calm, Bond pulls out a bottle of whisky, which he describes as the perfect drink for a spy in the field.
It doesn’t need to be chilled and can be consumed by the discerning gentleman just as easily neat as in a cocktail.
All of which means that you can forget Bond – Scotland’s national drink is the true hero of the spy world.
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