On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

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“If ever he needed a drink it was now! He tilted the little flask down his throat, emptied it and threw the bottle away. Happy Christmas! he said to himself, and bent to his bindings.” —Chapter 17

Published: 1963.

Overview: James Bond comes face-to-face with SPECTRE leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, thwarting an operation to destroy Britain’s agriculture and livestock through biological warfare. He also rescues and marries La Comtesse Teresa di Vicenzo, better known as Tracy. Besides the most tragic ending in the entire oeuvre, this novel also features 007’s most varied drink count (and second-highest), which even leads to a warning from MI6!

What does Bond drink?

• After checking into the Hotel Splendide, Bond orders a bottle of Taittinger Blanc de Blancs from room service, which Fleming notes is 007’s traditional drink when in Royale-les-Eaux. When the bottle arrives in its frosted silver bucket, he drinks a quarter of it “rather fast.” As he sits by the window and sips his champagne, Bond decides where he’d like to dine, while considering the previous evening’s “sleazy provender” (including a bottle of “instant” Pouilly-Fuissé).
• 007 makes a much better choice for that evening’s dinner, including half the best roast partridge he’s ever eaten. As he enters the casino, we learn he has been “Greatly encouraged, and further stimulated by half a bottle of Mouton Rothschild ’53 and a glass of ten-year-old Calvados.”

Calvados is a French apple brandy distilled from cider.

• After rescuing Tracy from her “coup du déshonneur” (and losing a further 200,000 francs to the man from Lille), Bond joins her in the casino bar. She is sitting alone, with a half-bottle of Bollinger in front of her.

Interestingly, in the first edition of OHMSS, Tracy is drinking a half-bottle of Pol Roger. In fact, that brand was the only champagne not sold in half bottles at the time. Ian Fleming, normally thorough, was beginning to make factual mistakes in his writing, almost certainly a result of the heart attack he had suffered in 1961. The mistake was corrected in subsequent editions.

During their conversation, Tracy admits that she doesn’t want to keep living. The half-bottle of Krug Bond has ordered arrives, and the hussier half-fills his glass. 007 tops it off and raises it to Tracy, introducing himself and saying “Please stay alive, at any rate for tonight.” He drinks the champagne down in one long gulp, and refills his glass. Tracy then takes a drink of her Bollinger and introduces herself to Bond.
• After coming face-to-face with Marc-Ange Draco inside his travelling office, the head of the Union Corse implores 007: “But do not kill me, I beg of you. At least not until we have had a stiff whisky and soda and a talk. Then I will give you the choice again. O.K.?” Draco opens a metal filing cabinet that contains a “complete and compact bar” and a refrigerator. He takes out bottles of Pinchbottle Haig & Haig and I.W. Harper bourbon, along with two Waterford pint glasses, a bucket of ice cubes, a soda siphon and some ice water. Bond makes himself a stiff bourbon and water on the rocks, while Draco chooses the scotch. (By the way, this marks the first time 007 drinks bourbon while in the Eastern Hemisphere.) Both men drink just before Draco reveals his identity to Bond. Later, as Draco tells 007 about Tracy’s problems, he gets up and refills both their drinks. After Bond reads the suicide note Tracy wrote to Draco, he takes a deep drink of his bourbon and reaches for the bottle. As he cuts to the chase about Draco’s intentions, 007 picks up his glass, looks into, and takes a drink, to give him courage to look Draco in the face.
• As Bond heads home from his office on the evening before he leaves for Switzerland, he plans on having “two double vodkas and tonics with a dash of Angostura,” followed by a large dish of May’s scrambled eggs fines herbes and then two more vodkas and tonics. Then slightly drunk, he will take half a grain of Seconal and go to bed.

While you won’t often find us condemning 007’s drinking habits, mixing barbiturates and alcohol is an incredibly bad idea.

• Posing as Sir Hilary Bray, Bond has two double brandy and ginger ales as he waits for his flight in the VIP Lounge at London Airport.
• At 6:00, Bond joins Irma Bunt and the “institute” patients in the bar. He decides the bar, “leather-padded...bogus-masculine...“gay” with small flags and miniature liqueur bottles” is not a place to get seriously drunk in. After meeting the ten women, a somewhat flustered 007 orders a whisky and soda. When his drink arrives, Bond is glad that it’s strong. He notices that a few of the girls have cocktails like orange blossoms and daiquiris. 007 decides that while it’s OK to drink, he will show a “gentlemanly moderation.” He observes that the women are all “good girls,” the sort who, in an English pub, would be “sitting demurely with a boy friend, sipping a Babycham” (a clear, sparkling alcoholic drink made from pears). Bond goes to the bar to get a second whisky, and brings back a daiquiri for Ruby (her second) and an apple juice for Bunt. He decides to break the ice and shows the girls an old drinking game that involves a glass, a coin, a napkin, and four cigarettes (the last time he had played was in the “dirtiest bar in Singapore”). Later, when the group sits down to eat, Bond notices the menu includes offerings like caviar and “Double Mokka au whisky irlandais.”
• At lunch, following his first meeting with Blofeld, 007 orders a double medium-dry vodka martini, on the rocks and with lemon peel. (Obviously, by ordering the martini on the rocks, Bond figured no one could possibly recognize him.) When the drink arrives, he takes a long pull from it. Following his near-miss encounter with an Englishman who knows the real Sir Hilary Bray, a nervous Bond drains the remainder of the martini.
• At 6:00, Bond (who has a headache) decides he needs a drink, or even three drinks. He goes to the bar, and joins Violet, who is sitting alone at the bar, drinking a daiquiri. He orders a second drink for her, and a double bourbon on the rocks for himself. When the drink arrives, he takes a long pull and exclaims, “By God, I needed that!” After they join Ruby and Irma Bunt at a table, more drinks are ordered. Bond notices the bourbon is beginning to uncoil his tensions and diminish his headache.
• During lunch (after Shaun Campbell blows his cover), Bond snaps his fingers for a waiter and orders a double vodka dry martini. He then asks Irma Bunt for a small flask of schnapps. While he intends to use it on his late-night ski escape, he tells her, “I find I am not sleeping well up here. Perhaps a nightcap would help. I always have one at home—generally whisky. But here I would prefer schnapps.” When his martini arrives, 007 swallows it in two gulps and orders another. (By the way, this is Bond's final martini of the Fleming series.)
• At dinner, Bond works on getting plenty of food and whisky inside himself before his escape. When he prepares to leave his room, he places the flat glass flask of schnapps in his side pocket (instead of his hip pocket, in case of a fall).
• Following his escape from the avalanche, Bond empties the flask, sarcastically wishing himself a Happy Christmas. He skies away feeling light-headed, but with the “wonderful glow of the Enzian in his stomach.”
• As a company car takes him from the airport to his flat, Bond instructs Mary Goodnight (who has accompanied the driver) to get his housekeeper May to “brew me plenty of black coffee and to pour two jiggers of our best brandy into the pot.”
• When Bond gets into the office, he finds photocopies of his list of the girls at the institute. (He had used his own urine to write the names on a page in his passport: an effective invisible ink that shows up when exposed to the heat from a flame.) He also receives a note marked “personal,” which says: “The ink showed traces of an excess of uric acid. This is often due to a super-abundance of alcohol in the blood-stream. You have been warned!” It appears the warning comes from MI6’s equivalent of internal affairs. They may have a point: in his two-and-a-half days at Piz Gloria, 007 has at least eight drinks (with even more implied), most of them doubles.
• Bond briefs M about his mission at the Admiral’s home, Quarterdeck. M, perhaps echoing the alcohol warning, notes that Bond looks like he hasn’t been getting much sleep: “Pretty gay these winter sports places, they tell me.” 007 replies that “this one provided plenty of miscellaneous entertainment.” During Christmas dinner, Bond (who is “aching for a drink”) has a small glass of very old Marsala and “most of a bottle of very bad Algerian wine.”

Marsala, a fortified Sicilian wine, became a replacement for rum in the British Navy (Nelson’s fleet took it along during their campaign against the French in Egypt). By adding brandy, the wine has a higher alcohol content, and unlike other wines, held up during long sea voyages.

M treats his two glasses of Algerian wine like Château Lafitte. We learn that “Infuriator” was the staple drink for the Mediterranean Fleet. “Got real guts to it.” M reminisces about an officer who bet he could drink six bottles, and instead ended up measuring “his length on the wardroom floor after only three. Drink up, James! Drink up!”
• After Leathers and Franklin depart, M rings for Hammond (his housekeeper) and asks for tea. Remembering his guest, he asks Bond if he’d rather have a whisky and soda. When Bond (with “infinite relief”) asks for whisky, M replies “Rot-gut.” After Hammond brings the tray, M gruffly tells 007 to pour himself a drink. Later, as he prepares to detail his plan to attack Blofeld’s facility, Bond takes a long pull on his drink and then carefully puts the glass down.
• As they compare dinners during their midnight phone conversation, Bond tells Tracy he had two ham sandwiches with mustard and half a pint of Harper’s bourbon on the rocks (the equivalent of four 2 oz. shots). By the way, he liked the bourbon better than the ham.
• When Bond arrives in Marseilles, his driver, Marius, suggests that he try any of the little places by the harbor and “Eat the plat du jour and drink the vin du Cassis.”

As opposed to currant-flavored liqeuer, Cassis is actually an ancient growing region near Marseilles, known especially for its white wines.

• When Bond arrives at Draco’s headquarters, his future father-in-law twice waves at a loaded sideboard and tells 007 to make himself a drink. Bond pours himself a stiff Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, and adds some water to the glass.

Another small mistake: Fleming incorrectly identifies Jack Daniel’s as a sourmash bourbon. While certainly a sourmash, Jack is actually a Tennessee whiskey, which is filtered through maple charcoal after it has been aged in the barrel. By comparison, true bourbon can not go through any extra process that adds color or flavor. In the Statistics section, we’ll go ahead and count Jack Daniel’s as bourbon, but we wanted you to know there is a difference.

After they finish making preliminary plans for the operation, Draco tells Bond that he has ordered a good dinner, after which “we will go to bed stinking of garlic and, perhaps, just a little bit drunk. Yes?” Bond replies (from his heart), “I can’t think of anything better.” (Unfortunately, we can’t count any drinks from this dinner, because there’s no further information.)
• He must have a good time, because the next day, as he makes his way to Strasbourg, Bond’s breath bears him “close company like some noisome, captive pet.” At the Hotel Maison Rouge, he has a simple dinner of foie gras and half a bottle of champagne.
• When he arrives at the château near Strasbourg, Draco tells Bond he is just in time for “some good Strasbourg sausage and a passable Riquewihr. Rather thin and bitter. I would have christened it ‘Château Pis-de-Chat,’ but it serves to quench the thirst.” (Draco is comparing this particular bottling to cat urine.)

Considered the wine capital of Alsace, Riquewihr boasts some 100 winemakers. The town’s best-known vintner, Hugel & Fils, has been in business since 1639.

Bond takes some sausage and bread and a bottle of the wine and sits down.
• Following his failed attempt to capture Blofeld, an injured Bond goes to the flat of the head of Station Z. Muir indicates a sideboard and tells 007 to help himself. Bond thanks him and says “A drink’ll fix me.” While Fleming doesn’t specify exactly what Bond pours himself, it appears he is having a whisky or a whisky and soda, since Muir later pours himself a weak whisky and soda in order to keep 007 company.
• At the Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich, Bond offers Tracy a deal: if she’ll change his dressings, he’ll buy her a drink downstairs, “Just one. And three for me. That’s the right ratio between men and women.” Later, when Tracy starts getting romantic, Bond reminds her about going down to the bar for drinks, since they have all the time in the world for talking about love. She retorts, “You are a pig....We’ve got so much to talk about and all you think about is drink.”
• The next day, after buying Tracy’s engagement and wedding rings, Bond and his taxi driver (a former Luftwaffe pilot) go to celebrate at the the Franziskaner Keller. Both have mounds of Weisswurst and four steins of beer, and promise they’ll never fight each other again. Bond returns tipsily to his hotel (“happy with his last bachelor party”) and puts the engagement ring on Tracy’s finger. After her initial reaction, she teases him about where he’s been, saying “You stink like a pig of beer and sausages.”
• Draco asks Bond to meet him in the bar for a talk (he wants to give James and Tracy money). Bond decides schnapps would go well after his beers, and orders a double Steinhäger, a German gin. When he refuses Draco’s offer of a million pounds, the Corsican accuses him of being drunk and not understanding what’s being offered. When Bond also refuses an offer of money for any children he and Tracy may have, he decisively drains his Steinhäger.
• As Mr. and Mrs. Bond motor to their planned honeymoon in Kitzbühel, he tells her about Kufstein, a town along the way where German tourists traditionally stop for large, cheap meals of Austrian food and wine. He laments that they will miss the town’s unique World War I memorial: a daily song on a church organ that can be heard for several kilometers around. Tracy replies, “I’ll make do with the zithers while you guzzle your beer and schnapps.”

Other people’s drinks:

• After Bond reaches the town of Samaden following his ski escape, he notices the man taking tickets for the Christmas Eve Ball is drunk.

Brand names: Taittinger champagne, Mouton Rothschild, Pol Roger champagne (first edition only), Bollinger champagne, Krug champagne, I.W. Harper bourbon, Pinch scotch, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey, Franziskaner beer, and Steinhäger gin.

Other observations:

• As Bond drafts his resignation letter to M while driving in France, he mentions his investigation of a Herr Blauenfelder in Sicily. Instead of Blofeld, the man turned out to be a respectable German viniculturist, grafting Moselle grapes onto Sicilian strains. Bond thinks better of a caustic aside about reducing the latter variety’s tendency towards sourness.
• As Bond thinks back on his drive through France, Fleming drops several French wine-related phrases, including Fines Bouteilles (fine wines), and “Jamais en Vain, Toujours en Vin” (roughly translated, “wine is never in vain”).
• On the final night of the season, the Casino Royale offers free champagne and a huge buffet as a reward to its local contractors and suppliers.
• During Bond’s first lunch in the Piz Gloria restaurant, Irma Bunt points out the many rich and famous people dining at the tables around them, including Ursula Andress. The actress has a noticeable tan (presumably because she had just finished filming Dr. No in Jamaica). Andress holds the distinction as the only Bond actress to appear in both a film and a novel.
• When Draco fills in Bond on the details of the attack on Piz Gloria, we learn that one of his men, Ché-Ché “le Persuadeur” was killed by a booby-trap in Blofeld’s filing cabinet. Despite his death, Ché-Ché appears in a subsequent Raymond Benson Bond novel, Never Dream of Dying.

Total: 46. At least one glass of Pouilly-Fuissé, at least two glasses of Taittinger champagne, at least one glass of Mouton Rothschild ’53, a glass of ten-year-old Calvados, at least two glasses of Krug champagne, three bourbon and waters, four vodka and tonics, two double brandy and ginger ales, two whisky and sodas, three double vodka martinis, two double bourbons on the rocks, at least one glass of undetermined whisky, a small flask of Enzian schnapps, coffee with two shots of brandy in it (we’ll call it two drinks), a small glass of Marsala wine, the better part of a bottle of bad Algerian wine, two scotch whiskies, half a pint of I.W. Harper bourbon (equaling four drinks), a Jack Daniel’s with water on the rocks, half a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Riquewihr wine, three undetermined drinks, four steins of Franziskaner beer, and a double Steinhäger gin.