Thunderball

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“The one drink too many signals itself unmistakably. His final whisky and soda in the luxurious flat in Park Lane had been no different from the ten preceding ones, but it had gone down reluctantly and had left a bitter taste and an ugly sensation of surfeit.” —Chapter 1

Published: 1961.

Overview: James Bond races against time to find two atomic bombs hijacked by SPECTRE. For the first time, the martini man squares off against a villain with his own signature drink. Speaking of martinis, Felix Leiter runs the voodoo down on our favorite libation.

What does Bond drink?

• Bond begins the novel with a major hangover, after drinking 11 scotch and sodas the previous evening. We learn that the eleventh drink caused a rare lapse in 007’s card sense, “the difference between a grand slam redoubled (drunkenly) for him, and four hundred points above the line for the opposition.”
• As M reveals the results of Bond’s physical, he quotes the Medical Officer's observation that “When not engaged upon strenuous duty, the officer’s average daily consumption of alcohol is in the region of half a bottle of spirits of between sixty and seventy proof.” The doctor also notes that 007’s liver is not palpable. Due to this and other problems, M orders Bond to spend two weeks at Shrublands, a health clinic near Brighton.
• As Bond complains to Miss Moneypenny, she tells him that M heard about Shrublands from one of his friends at Blades (“one of the fat, drinking ones I suppose”). She asks 007 “do you really drink and smoke as much as that? It can’t be good for you, you know.” Bond replies “It’s just that I’d rather die of drink than of thirst.” After hearing “the stale, hangover words,” he tells himself that what he needs is a double brandy and soda.
• After Count Lippe tries to kill him on the motorized traction table, Bond regains consciousness in his room. When his nurse, Patricia Fearing, asks how he’s feeling, 007 remarks that he’d “be still better for a double whisky on the rocks.” She agrees that a little stimulant might be good, and reveals that she’s brought a bottle of brandy, and plenty of ice. After he sits up, Patricia hands him a glass. Bond drinks and hears “the reassuring, real-life tinkle of the ice.” He decides he wants to settle down with her, and from time to time, she will give him effleurage and a good tough drink. When he finishes, he holds out the empty glass and asks for more. She agrees, but warns that on an empty stomach, the drink may make him “dreadfully tight.” As they discuss what happened on the traction table, Patricia hands Bond a new drink. He finishes it, and hands back the empty glass.
• As he adjusts to the treatments at Shrublands, 007 compares the effects of three cups of tea not to hard liquor, but to a half a bottle of champagne. He has three obsessions: a desire to bed Patricia Fearing, plans of revenge against Count Lippe, and a “passionate longing for a large dish of Spaghetti Bolognese containing plenty of chopped garlic and accompanied by a whole bottle of the cheapest, rawest Chianti (bulk for his empty stomach and sharp tastes for his starved palate).” After turning up the heat on Lippe on his last day at Shrublands, 007 gets his spaghetti and Chianti at Lucien’s in Brighton, just prior to devouring Nurse Fearing.
• As he prepares to leave for the Bahamas (following Count Lippe’s attempt to kill him), Bond asks his housekeeper May to fix him a proper meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. He also asks her to bring in the drink tray. (While Fleming doesn’t specify what he drinks, it’s pretty safe to assume 007 has something.)
• In Nassau, Bond introduce himself to Domino Vitali in a tobacco shop (she’s trying to give up smoking, and is looking for a brand so disgusting it will make her want to quit). He remarks that smoking goes with drinking, and asks if she’s going to give them both up. She agrees to join him for a drink, but only out of town, at a place called Gunpowder Wharf. When they arrive, 007 looks at his watch and remarks that it’s exactly noon. “Do you want to drink solid or soft?” Domino says soft, and asks for a double Bloody Mary with plenty of Worcester sauce. Bond asks “What do you call hard?” and orders a vodka and tonic with a dash of bitters for himself. She tells him that she considers vodka on the rocks hard. “All that tomato juice makes it soft.” When the order arrives, she stirs in the Worcester sauce with her finger, and then drinks half her Bloody Mary. After Bond casually questions her about Emilio Largo and the Disco Volante, Domino thanks Bond for the drink and leaves.
• As they discuss the case in Felix Leiter’s room at the Royal Bahamian, Bond and Leiter order double dry martinis on the rocks and a room service menu. By the time their decidedly underwhelming lunch arrives, they have both had an additional martini.
• When Bond and Leiter (posing as a millionaire and his attorney) visit Largo on the Disco Volante, the villain goes to a “loaded sideboard” and asks what he can get the two to drink. “Something cool and not too strong perhaps? A Planter’s Punch? Gin and tonic? Or there are various beers.” Both Bond and Leiter ask for a plain tonic.
• After they contact their respective headquarters, Leiter tells Bond he’ll meet him later in the Pineapple Bar for a “dry martini that’s half a jumbo olive.” Bond returns to his hotel room and has a double bourbon old-fashioned before taking a nap.
• In chapter 14, titled “Sour Martinis,” Leiter and Bond meet for drinks in the Pineapple Room at the Royal Bahamian. The fun begins when Leiter orders two martinis and tells Bond to watch what happens next. When the drinks arrive, the American asks the waiter to send over the bartender. Leiter tells him “I asked for a martini and not a soused olive.” To demonstrate his point, he removes the olive from the drink, leaving the glass only half-full. Leiter then proceeds to educate the bartender on the economics of martini-making. We learn that through a variety of methods (from watering down the liquor to adding large olives) a bartender can extend the 16 measures of gin in each bottle into 28. He reveals that the bar can thereby see a profit of $20 for a $1.60 bottle of Gordon’s. After mildly threatening to complain to the hotel management and Tourist Board, he asks for two large dry martinis without olives and some slices of lemon peel on the side. The bartender agrees to make new drinks, but comments that most of the customers don’t complain. Leiter replies “here’s one who’s dry behind the ears. A good barman should learn to be able to recognize the serious drinker from the status-seeker who wants just to be seen in your fine bar.” Even Bond is amazed at Leiter’s analysis. “You got those figures right, Felix? I always knew one got clipped, but I thought only about a hundred percent—not four or five.” Leiter credits his expertise to working for Pinkertons. When the new martinis arrive, they are excellent, and a less agitated Leiter orders another round.
• Bond and Leiter each have coffee and a stinger at the Nassau Casino bar.
• After losing to Bond at baccarat, Largo laments that he was going to take Domino for a drink and a dance. 007 offers to take her, saying “I can just afford even a Nassau drink now, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Largo.” Domino agrees and tells Largo she will be in the supper room having caviar and champagne. Trying to goad Largo, Bond comments “I will order champagne and caviar for three. My spectre also deserves his reward.” In the supper room, Bond orders Clicquot Rosé and fifty dollars’ worth of Beluga (because “anything less..would be no more than a spoonful”). Midway through their conversation, Domino tells Bond to give her more champagne, since “All this silly talking has made me thirsty.” A little later, she drinks down a glass of the bubbly.
• Back in his hotel room after discovering the Vindicator, Bond orders (and consumes) a club sandwich and a double bourbon on the rocks from room service.

The morning after:

• As Thunderball begins, Bond has a bad hangover, “with an aching head and stiff joints.” When he coughs (“smoking too much goes with drinking too much and doubles the hangover”), luminous black spots swim across his vision. To remedy the situation, 007 swallows two Phensics (a painkiller), and reaches for the Eno’s (an antacid).
• When May complains about the health food Bond is eating, he reminds his housekeeper that he no longer has hangovers. “Why, a month ago there wasn’t a week went by but that on at least one day I couldn’t eat anything for breakfast but a couple of aspirins and a prairie oyster.”

Other people’s drinks:

• During meetings of SPECTRE’s Special Executive in Paris, drinking is taboo and smoking is frowned upon. The group’s leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, does not smoke or drink, and has no known vices.
• Fleming details the covers which will be assumed by some of the SPECTRE members in the Bahamas, identities which are not far from each man’s real-life experience. One man who will pose as a winemaker actually has vineyards in Yugoslavia and can “talk vintages and crop sprays with a Calvet from Bordeaux.”
• When Loelia Ponsonby complains to Miss Moneypenny about 007’s new energy, Moneypenny tells her that M lost his mania for the “nature cure” after he was rattled by a couple of bad cases and went to Blades to relax. The next day he looked and felt awful, but was back to normal. “I suppose he got back on the champagne cure or something. It’s really the best for men. It makes them awful, but at least they’re human like that.”
• As he oversees Phase III of Plan Omega from the Disco Volante, Largo thinks of Domino, who must be sitting down to dinner (since everyone keeps Spanish hours in Nassau, and cocktails do not finish before ten). After the atomic bombs are brought on board the yacht, Largo tells the captain (who was discharged from the Canadian Navy for drunkenness and insubordination) to give each of the divers a full jigger of whisky. Later, after personally supervising the hiding of the bombs beneath Dog Island, Largo goes to his stateroom and carefully makes a tall glass of his favorite drink, crème de menthe frappé with a maraschino cherry on top. He sips the drink delicately to the end, and then eats the cherry. He then takes a second cherry out of the bottle and pops it into his mouth as he leaves his cabin.
• Leiter decides Largo and his men are up to something after observing them in the casino. Despite being on holiday in the Bahamas, the thugs act stiff and serious, perfunctorily drinking one or two glasses of champagne just “to show the Christmas spirit.” (After their visit to the Disco Volante, 007 had commented on how the real pros never drank or smoke.)
• Three hours before they leave to deploy the first bomb, Largo tells the members of the SPECTRE team that anyone who wants to can have one drink of alcohol. The men are also each given a dexedrine pill.

Other drinks mentioned: Dandelion wine.

Brand names: Clicquot Rosé champagne.

Other observations:

• Thunderball marks the first novel where Bond drinks something other than alcoholic beverages or coffee. During his stay at Shrublands, 007 drinks tea, a beverage he normally abhors. He and Leiter drink plain tonic waters while aboard the Disco Volante. Bond even drinks a glass of ice water while aboard the Manta.
• Let the ’60s begin! When Felix Leiter deduces that Bond might have delayed Count Lippe in sending the letter from Brighton (leading to his liquidation by SPECTRE), 007 accuses Leiter of taking mescalin.

Total: 24. Eleven scotch and sodas, two glasses of brandy, at least one glass of Chianti, at least one undetermined drink, a vodka and tonic (with a dash of bitters), four gin martinis, a double bourbon old-fashioned, a stinger, at least one glass of Clicquot Rosé champagne, and a double bourbon on the rocks. If we subtract the 11 scotch and sodas (which Bond drank just prior to the beginning of the book), 007 has only 13 drinks during the course of Thunderball.