There's a delightful book called How's Your Drink? by Eric Felten, which is all about different cocktails and their histories. Everyone reading this thread should read the book. Felten actually mentions Kina Lillet in the Vesper as dictated by Bond in one of the Fleming novels. He says it's a rare cocktail slipup for Fleming, who was a devoted drinker and generally knew his stuff.


I too am more of a wine guy, actually. Beer comes a distant third for me. My take on the difference between shaken and stirred is that a shaken martini has more of what I've heard best described as an icy bite. A stirred one is more like liquid velvet. But both cases require the correct proportion of gin to vermouth. Too much or too little vermouth, and the martini loses its je ne sais quoi.

Please do! Sounds interesting.