You Only Live Twice

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“Moreover, it is unwise to underestimate saké. We have a saying, ‘It is the man who drinks the first flask of saké; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the saké that drinks the man.’” —Chapter 1

Published: 1964.

Overview: Following the death of his wife, a devastated James Bond is sent on a mission to Japan. While there, he is tasked with eliminating Dr. Shatterhand, a mysterious foreigner luring thousands of Japanese citizens to commit suicide in an elaborate "garden of death." On the way, Bond drinks a lot of sake, and spits gin on a cow. (Seriously.) This novel marks the end of the Blofeld trilogy, and features Bond's highest drink count ever.

What does Bond drink?

• As the novel opens, we join James Bond and Tiger Tanaka (head of the Japanese secret service) at a private geisha party. As 007 and Tiger prepare to play a game of “rock, paper, scissors,” Bond asks for more sake, and “not in these ridiculous thimbles.” We learn that Bond has already had five flasks of the rice wine, which he claims has only had the effect of one double martini. After Bond asks for a plain glass tumbler, Tiger (besides good-naturedly noting that Bond’s drinking habits are gross) remarks that it is unwise to underestimate the drink. Tiger reveals that Bond has gained great face with the geisha girls, since only sumo wrestlers can drink great quantities of sake without showing it. He reveals that the madame, Grey Pearl, thinks Bond is an eight-flask man. When Bond ’s tumbler of sake arrives, he downs it in two big gulps, soon followed by two more tumblers. As Bond boldly asserts his intention to beat Tiger, it's mentioned that he is "encouraged perhaps by the crafty ambush of the saké." After he wins the game, Bond has one more drink, this time toasting his host. Tiger then invites Bond back to his house for a nightcap, to discuss a matter of great import. Once there, they sit in chairs, a drink tray between them. Before beginning the discussion, Tiger asks Bond if his saké is warm enough.
• As M and Sir James Molony discuss Bond’s problems, we learn that 007 is “drinking too much.” A little later, we join Bond as he sits alone in Regent’s Park. He has mentioned his heavy drinking, along with other health worries, to several doctors he has visited. (Before Tracy’s death, he only suffered from occasional hangovers, and the various injuries resulting from his adventures.) As he slowly starts walking back to the office Bond notes that it’s 3:30. “Only two more hours to go before his next drink!”
• Following his briefing with M, Bond asks Miss Moneypenny to phone his secretary and tell her to get out of any plans she has for the evening. He tells Moneypenny he's taking Mary Goodnight out to dinner at Scotts, where they'll have roast grouse and pink champagne. (Bond and Bill Tanner had lunch at the same London restaurant in Diamonds Are Forever.)
• During his flight from London to Tokyo, Bond orders a "chain of brandies and ginger ales" that will "sustain him over the Channel, a leg of the North Sea, the Kattegat, the Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Sea, the Bering Sea, and the North Pacific Ocean." Even today, it's a 12 hour journey. Since there's no clear indication of the number of drinks Bond has, we'll assign one per body of water, which equals seven.
• In Japan, Bond meets up with his Australian contact, Richard Lovelace Henderson, better known as Dikko. (Fleming notes that he "looks like a middle-age prize-fighter who has retired and taken to the bottle.") Henderson tells Bond he'll take him to his hotel (the Okura), and then they'll "do a bit of serious drinking." They drink at the Okura's Bamboo Bar, but Fleming does not provide any further details. We'll count this as one drink.
• The following night they go for more serious drinking to Melody's, Henderson's favorite bar (it was also once a favorite of English residents and members of the press corps). Henderson tells Bond to watch out for any Japanese man "drinking Western" and wearing a blue suit and black tie: it means they're part of the Japanese secret service. While there, they each drink at least eight flasks of sake. Bond decides that Henderson is getting cheerfully tight (because he's found a drinking buddy of equal ability). Bond decides that's a good thing, since he'll have a better opportunity to pick Henderson's brain. As he and Bond continue to talk (Henderson also notes he's getting tight, rather than drunk), the Australian downs his ninth pint of sake. As they get ready to leave, Henderson tells Bond they're going to go eat eels and "get a serious bottle of plonk" (Australian for cheap liquor or wine). Bond says he'll pay for the eels, and Henderson should pay for the rice wine and plonk, "whatever that is."
• The next morning we learn that Henderson has a serious hangover. He steers right for the Bamboo Bar and orders a double brandy and ginger ale. Bond admonishes him, saying "You shouldn't have poured all that saké on top of the Suntory. I can't believe Japanese whisky makes a good foundation for anything." Henderson says he has a proper futsuka-yoi, an honorable hangover. He tells Bond that he's wrong about Suntory: it's a good enough brew. "Stick to the cheapest, the White Label...there are two smarter brands, but the cheap one's the best."

Today, Suntory whisky is better regarded. In fact, the company operates the largest whisky distillery in the world, and now owns several distilleries in Scotland, including Bowmore. Suntory was the whisky at the center of the 2003 film Lost in Translation.

• Henderson tells Bond that he once went to the distillery and met with one of the family. The man said that "you can only make good whisky where you can take good photographs....said it was something to do with the effect of clear light on the alcohol." Henderson finishes off his drink as he and Bond leave to meet Tiger Tanaka.
• Back at Tiger's house (following the geisha party), Bond takes a deep drink of his sake. Tiger pours himself a "liberal tot of Suntory" and adds soda. As they talk, Bond picks up the sake flask, which is being heated in a jar of water over a charcoal burner. He fills his glass and drinks. As Tiger tells Bond about Dr. Shatterhand, he pauses and pours more sake for Bond and more Suntory for himself. As he continues with his story he tells Bond "I can see from your face that you think I am either drunk or mad." At 4 a.m., Bond drinks the last of his sake, which has "the flat taste of too much." He later considers the night's "long background of saké and cigarettes." A couple of hours later, as he takes a sauna at the bath-house, we learn that Bond is "slightly but cheerfully drunk."
• On the train to Gamagori, Tiger and Bond get something to eat and drink in the buffet car. Tiger says that all the Suntory whisky that Bond "forced" on him the previous night is "crying out for the skin of the dog that bit me." When Bond corrects him by saying "the hair," Tiger says, "One hair would not be enough...I need the whole skin." Fleming doesn't specify what Bond drinks (he eats raw octopus and rice), but since Tiger is having one, we'll assume that Bond joins him.
• At dinner that night, Tiger tells Bond he has ordered lobster and large quantities of sake served in tumblers. A pretty waitress pours the rice wine, and Bond swallows his in one gulp. Tiger remarks that the grossness of Bond's drinking habits will fit well with his cover identity as a coal miner. As they talk, Bond asks for more sake. Tiger tells him to lift his glass, since otherwise, the waitress will not pour (which Bond then does). Tiger tells Bond about his decision to join the kamikaze (the war ended before he finished training), and mentions that as he heard increasingly bad news about Japan's fortunes during the war, "the wine turned sour" in his mouth. As the story continues, Bond raises his glass and gets more sake. Later, after the (still living) lobster arrives, Bond gets more sake, hoping it will "give him strength to try the seaweed."
• Tiger and Bond visit a barn that houses cattle. Tiger asks Bond to take a bottle of beer and feed it to one of the cows. After the cow drinks the beer, the chief herdsman hands Bond a bottle of shochu.

  Fleming describes shochu as a raw gin, but in reality, it's closer to vodka. Produced across Japan, it generally has an alcohol content of about 25 percent. Shochu can be distilled from a variety of ingredients, including rice, wheat, and potatoes. It's usually mixed with water, tea, or juice.

  Tiger orders Bond to fill his mouth with shochu, spray it on to the cow's back, and then massage the alcohol into its skin. Bond guesses that Tiger wants to see him choke on the shochu, but he fills his mouth, and sprays the cow. He wipes “his hands across his lips that were already stinging with the harsh spirit” and energetically rubs in the alcohol. We later learn that the cows get a daily massage and four bottles of beer.
• After the cow massage, Tiger and Bond go to a restaurant where they have Kobe beef. After they sit down, a waitress brings sake, and Bond drinks his “first flask at one long gulp to wash away the rasp of the gin.” (Since Fleming mentions it's his first flask, we'll assume there's a second.) Bond tells Tiger he doesn't like beef, but later admits it's the best he's ever had. As they talk, we learn that Tiger is an expert at martial arts, but did not achieve the top level because he would have had to give up sake and beautiful women.
• Bond and Tiger spend the evening in the Miyako, “the smartest hotel in Kyoto.” Because Tiger has another engagement, Bond spends the night in his room, where he dines on a double order of eggs Benedict and a pint of Jack Daniel's. (at 16 ounces, a pint bottle equals eight two ounce drinks.) The next morning, we learn that Bond is “hung-over and conscience-stricken.”
• As Bond and Tiger sail on the Murasaki Maru to Beppu, they sit in the first class dining room and eat ham omelets and drink sake. Later, as the conversation turns personal (about Bond's lack of concern for his own safety), Bond deflects Tiger's questions by asking for more sake, which Tiger promptly orders. As their journey nears its completion, Bond realizes that the “saké and sightseeing” will soon have to come to an end.
• At dinner that night, Tiger tells Bond they will be having a feast of fugu (blowfish), which if not prepared properly, is deadly poisonous. Bond says “I'm not going to commit honourable suicide without at least five bottles of saké inside me.” Five flasks are brought (by giggling waitresses), and Bond proceeds to drink them all, at which point he declares he is satisfied. They proceed to eat the fugu, as well as side-dishes containing other parts of the fish, and sake containing raw fugu fins.
• As Tiger and Bond travel by launch to Kuro Island, Tiger produces sandwiches and two flasks of sake. This is Bond's only drink in the novel's second half.
• As Kissy Suzuki dives for awabi (abalone), Bond anticipates his own turn to dive for the shells. "Saké and cigarettes! Not a good mixture to train on!"
• During Ernst Stavro Blofeld's final monologue, the villain contrasts his own genius to Bond's seeming insignificance: "...you satisfy your brutish instincts with alcohol, nicotine and sex while waiting to be dispatched on the next misbegotten foray."

Other people’s drinks:

• During his after-dinner discussion with M in Blades, Sir James Molony drinks a brandy along with coffee and a cigar.
• When we first encounter Dikko Henderson in Melody's, he pours a glass of sake down his throat without swallowing. We learn that he previously laid a foundation of Suntory whiskey in the bar of Bond's hotel. He reveals that he gets along well with Tiger Tanaka because they both share a love of wine and women. Henderson has 13 drinks during the novel, the highest total of any Bond ally save Felix Leiter.
• Tiger Tanaka has at least nine drinks, but since there are occasions where Bond drinks and Fleming says nothing about Tanaka, there are probably several more.

Brand names: Suntory whisky, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.

Other observations:

• Bond gets a new number for this assignment: 7777.
• As he tells Bond about life in Japan, Dikko Henderson notes that frequent earthquakes make one "feel slightly drunk." He warns Bond that if a typhoon hits, he should "go into the stoutest bar you can see and get drunk."
• Bond notes that Shinsei, the Japanese cigarettes offered by Tiger Tanaka, are "sharp on the palate and lungs, like 90 proof spirits."
• It appears that Bond never tries Suntory.
• Several times during the novel, Bond drinks tea (presumably green), a beverage he normally hates.

Total: 54. At least 35 flasks/tumblers of sake, at least half a bottle of pink champagne, seven brandy and ginger ales, a pint bottle of Jack Daniel's (equaling eight drinks), and at least three undetermined drinks.