MIKE RICCETTI
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  • The best of Houston dining
    • Bakeries for bread
    • Banh mi
    • Best Values
    • Breakfast tacos
    • Cajun and Creole
    • Chicken Fried Steak
    • Cocktails
    • Crawfish
    • Downtown Dining
    • EaDo and East End Dining
    • Fajitas
    • French
    • French Fries
    • Fried Chicken
    • Galleria Area Dining
    • Greek
    • Guinness pours
    • Houston-centric
    • Italian
    • Italian-American
    • Japanese
    • Kolaches
    • Mexican
    • Middle Eastern
    • Midtown Dining
    • Montrose Dining
    • Pizzerias
    • Pizza at Non-Pizzerias
    • Raw Bars
    • Rice Village Dining
    • Sandwiches
    • Seafood
    • Splurge-Worthy
    • Steakhouses
    • Sushi
    • To Take Visitors
    • Tex-Mex
    • Thai
    • Tough Tables
    • Wine Bars
    • Wine Lists
  • The margherita pizza project
  • The martini project
  • Musings on Houston Dining
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2022
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2021
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2019
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2018
    • The dozen best Inner Loop values
    • Dining recommendations for visitors to Houston
  • Italian restaurant history
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    • Booze basics
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    • Handling Those Disruptive Guests
  • Wine
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MIKE RICCETTI

It was not a martini

James Bond's first cocktail was Italian


​The first in a line of many drinks....

James Bond is strongly associated with martinis, shaken not stirred, of course.  But, his very first drink, the first drink described that the Bond character drank in the very first novel, Casino Royale published in 1953, is actually an Italian one, and consumed in France.  Found on page 24 of the edition I recently perused, set in a fancy hotel in a fictitious French resort town:
 
“Bond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of l'heure de l'aperitif. The men were drinking inexhaustible quarter-bottles of champagne, the women dry martinis.”
 
The Americano is the cocktail that was the basis for the much more famous (and potent) Negroni.  The Americano is:
 
Campari – 1 ounce
Sweet vermouth – 1 ounce
Club soda – splash
Orange slice
 
The cocktail was created in the eponymous Café Campari by Gaspare Campari in the 19th century.  It was originally called the Milano-Torino after the location of its two main ingredients, the Campari from Milan and the Cinzano sweet vermouth from Turin.  Some decades later as it became popular with American tourists it acquired the name of a typical purchaser of the cocktail.  It can still make for an enjoyable aperitivo at an Italian restaurant, whether in Italy or here.
 
By the way, page 33 of the same edition of Casino Royale describes the first martini ordered by Bond:
 
“Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”

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