Extra Credit

M, at the James Bond Dossier, was gracious enough to give me the opportunity to sound off a little bit (well, actually more than a little bit) about the first Skyfall teaser trailer.

You can read my words here: http://www.tjbd.co.uk/content/skyfall/skyfall-teaser-trailer-1-why-its-bond.htm

Cheers,
L.T.

Mint Julep

I'd say his Julep is tart enough for him.

Once upon a time in the 1700's, there was, in the United States of America, a vibrant mixed drink culture with a truly staggering array of different classifications of beverages designed to make the best use of the limited spirits and ingredients available at the time. There were punches, collinses, fizzes, flips, noggs, daisies, sours, coolers, cobblers, sangarees, toddies and slings. Bartenders and customers alike were expected to know, more or less, the difference between these drinks, which were served hot, which were served cold and which were served at room temperature (as ice was difficult and expensive to both obtain and maintain and dental technology not all that advanced, super cold drinks were not necessarily a given). Failure on the part of the bartender to get it right could result in termination- literally, by way of lead poisoning, blunt object or a blade across the throat. Tough times.

What you don't see in the list above are juleps. That's because juleps were medicinal in nature. Think "serum". You wouldn't order something called a Mint Serum would you (you might, I don't know you but I would certainly think twice)?  It sounds like something meant to cure what ails you. Again, literally.

But at some point in the 1790's, a drink quite correctly called a Mint Smash became known as a Mint Julep. Perhaps because drinking one made you feel as though it was curing what ailed you (figuratively, of course).  Or maybe there was a piece of glassware lost to history called the "julep glass"?

For whatever reason, the Julep became a category on it's own (something like a super-sized Smash) and the addition of mint helped popularize icy drinks in the 1800's.

Something about watching James Bond and Goldfinger sipping Mint Juleps in the shade captured my imagination many years before I could order one for myself. The only indication of what it might taste like, besides the presence of mint, are when Bond specifies "Sour mash and not too sweet"and Goldfinger politely asks "Is your Julep tart enough?" Imagine my surprise and momentary disappointment that the Mint Julep isn't even a little bit tart. 

The Mint Julep is a pretty simple drink in terms of flavor. The tobacco, spice and vanilla notes in the bourbon compliment the freshness of the mint and the small amount sugar helps integrate the flavors and soften the harshness of the spirits.  Creamy?  Perhaps. Minty? Definitely. Sweet? Certainly. Tart? Absolutely not.  But it is absolutely delicious and on a long, hot day there is nothing like it.If the Mint Julep has a failing it is also its strength in that it isn't complex. In cooler weather, a busier flavor profile might be a better choice but in the heat, simpler drinks are more refreshing.

But why does Bond specify "Sour mash, and not too sweet"?  By the 1960's, the Mint Julep had been a bourbon (or at least sour mash whiskey) drink for at least a hundred years but in the early days, the Julep could be ordered with gin (Dutch genever, not London dry), brandy or sour mash whiskey (either bourbon or Tennessee whiskey), all with mint but some featuring fruits and additional liqueurs. One recipe features a mix of rye and cognac instead of the bourbon, which is a delightful enhancement.  In any case, James Bond is either a little out of step or showing off how incredibly picky he can be by specifying the spirit the bartender would almost certainly use anyway.

The Mint Julep 

• 2. oz. spirit (I like mine with 1.5 oz. Bulleit bourbon which is high in rye content with .5 oz. Courvoisier V.S. cognac),
• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
• 5 to 8 spearmint leaves
• 1 oz. water
• crushed ice
• 1 mint sprig for garnish

 Put mint, water and superfine sugar in the bottom of the glass, muddle and set aside for a few minutes. By using superfine sugar, the granules will help abrade the mint leaves before the water turns them into syrup. Simple syrup will work for flavor but won't help express the flavor from the leaves as efficiently. The longer you leave the mint in the syrup, the more mint flavor you will extract.

If you do not have a device to crush the ice, another (and possibly better option) is to put the ice in a canvas bag known as a Lewis Bag and pound away on it with a rubber or wood mallet (I'm not kidding. It's very cathartic) until powdery. The bag will absorb any water so the ice stays dry and won't turn to slush before its time.

Fill your glass with the crushed ice, pour in the bourbon, stir until the glass starts to frost and top with more ice.  Top with a sprig of mint and enjoy on the veranda with a narrow straw, a dangerous blonde and a plans of world domination to warm your heart of gold.

Rum Collins

 In 1934, only one year after the repeal of prohibition in the United States, former bootlegger Don Beach went straight, opened a successful chain of restaurant bars and invented the faux tropical style of cocktail known now as the tiki drink.

Usually based on citrus juices, spices and rum (which was far cheaper than whiskey due to an over-stock on the part of rum runners no longer profiting from the nation's "great experiment"), the tiki drink owed more to the punches, flips and sangarees of the pre-prohibition hey day than the simpler and certainly more spartan Martini and Manhattan cocktails people had been imbibing during the so-called "dry years".  With sweeter, more complex flavors and a new faux island exoticism to market it, the tiki drink ushered in a new class of cocktail drinkers.

To the martini crowd, this new class of drinker must have seemed trendy, inelegant and, frankly, lacking in good taste or sense. I imagine they felt about the tiki drinking crowd then much as I do now about the good folks who, I will assume because they don't know any better (or are 12), swill cotton candy "martinis" and "mud slides" in places like TGIFriday's. "Snobbery," as M says in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, "is a curious thing."

By the time Emilio Largo offers James Bond a Rum Collins in the film version of Thunderball, these two group definitions were well established and, in a world where James Bond can tell a moral weakness in a man's soul just by what he drinks (as he does when Kristatos orders a Brandy Alexander in the short story Risico), a Rum Collins goes a long way to telling 007, as well as the more sophisticated members of the audience, that Largo, while dangerous, is by no means made of the stern, steely eyed stuff that is James Bond.

The Tom or John Collins is a fine tall gin based drink dating well back into the 1800's but I believe the the tiki fad (which was in full swing in the early 1960's, lasted more than 40 years and, after finally going dark in the 1980's, is enjoying a well deserved come back) popularized the substitution of rum over gin. Of course, there is another, perhaps more immediate connotation; the Rum Collins is a drink popular in Cuba, then as now, a predominantly communist nation and Thunderball takes place in the heart of cold war. By offering Bond a Rum Collins, Largo is revealing himself, if not as the enemy, then certainly as "the other".

The recipes for the Rum Collins are many, some dictating as much as 1.5 ounces of lime juice (which is great if you want to turn your mouth into a kind of ceviche but not for this drink) while others recommend 3 ounces of rum which is more than any other ingredient could hope to bring into balance.

Here is the most palatable of the recipes I tried. Shake with ice:

• 2 oz. white rum (I used Cruzan)
• .5 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1.5 oz. simple syrup (or super fine sugar)

Strain into an ice filled tall (10 oz.) Collins glass, top with soda water, stir lightly and garnish with a cherry and a lime wheel.

This makes a drink that is probably as refreshing and forgettable in the Nasau heat as one might crave. It is slightly sweet, slightly tart with a very faint rum flavor that is all but obscured by the lime and the sugar. It isn't bad; it's just unremarkable.

A delightful twist on the Rum Collins that takes a slice out of the tiki culture and one which James Bond and Ian Fleming almost certainly would have disapproved of is to shake with ice:

• 1 oz. dark, aged rum (I used Lemon Hart 80 proof)
• 1 oz. light rum (Cruzan as before)
• .5 oz. fresh lime juice
• (Replace the sugar with) 1.5 tsp. Fee Brothers' Falernum
• a dash of Angostura aromatic bitters

Strain, top with club soda and serve as above. The dark rum adds flavor and body while the falernum adds sweetness, spice and the kind of interesting tropical funk one might imagine at the bottom of a chest full of lost treasure. The bitters help bring it all home into one deliciously balanced, albeit tiki influenced, cocktail. The rum and lime finally frolic the way they were always meant to while the spices add a kind of interest that keeps your palette just puzzled enough that you keep coming back for more.

This drink makes a pleasant afternoon in the back yard with friends into an evening of hilarious entertainment if, like Emilio Largo and myself, you keep sharks in your swimming pool.

Cheers!

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For more information on Don Beach and the tiki culture he started and helped create as well as many amazing cocktail recipes thought lost to the winds of time, buy yourself a copy of Sippin' Safari by Jeff "Beach Bum" Berry.