007 Drink: Gin

007 Drink: Gin

June 2, 2024 0 By 007 Travelers

Drink: Gin
Bond book appearances (pure gin): “Dr. No” (1958), “Goldfinger” (1959), “Colonel Sun” (1968), “Young Bond: Double Or Die” (2007), “Solo” (2013). Bond often orders also gin based drinks like Negroni, or Gin Tonic.

Experience of 007 Travelers: At home

Bond’s first experience with alcohol was gin. Bond villain John Charnage forced young Bond to drink gin in book “Young Bond: Double Or Die” (2007) by Charlie Higson. In later life Bond does drink gin without being forced to. 🙂

“I won’t drink”, said James stubbornly.
“You will”, said Charnage. “One way or another. Now, I think good old British gin. Let’s be patriotic, eh? Let’s drink to merry old England. Rule Britannia and all that rot. Let’s drink to the British Empire. Let’s drink to good old King George who sent millions of young men off to die in the war.”
“I won’t drink”, James repeated.
“I really don’t blame you”, said Charnage, filling a large tumbler almost to the brim with gin.
“Alcohol is a positively lethal substance. Rots the liver, rots the guts, rots the brain, poisons the blood and clogs your arteries with fat. It turns a sane man mad and a clever man into a fool. I wonder why it is that most of man’s greatest pleasures are things that kill him,” he added. “Perhaps it’s evidence of God’s sense of humour. Now, then… Who wants to be mother?”
He passed the glass to Ludwig and sat down on one corner of his desk.
Ludwig walked over to James and held the gin in front of his face. James smelt flowers and lemons and cleaning fluid, and the alcohol caught in the back of his throat.
“You going to take it?” asked Ludwig. “Or am I going to have to make you?”
James defiantly took the glass. The gin looked so clear and so harmless, if it wasn’t for the smell it could have been water.
Charnage raised his whisky. “Chin-chin,” he said. “What ho! Down the hatch!”
James hurled his glass with all his strength straight his head. Charnage casually ducked out of its way and the tumbler smashed harmlessly against the wall behind him. The gin had gone everywhere and its stink filled the room.
“Oh dear,” said Charnage, mopping at his desk with a silk handkerchief. “The party just got boring.”
He opened a drawer and took out a pair of handcuffs. “Use these,” he said. tossing them to Ludwig.
Ludwig caught them cleanly, but, while he was distracted, James leapt out of his chair and charged at him, slamming him back against the wall and winding him. Charnage grabbed James from behind and wrestled him back towards the chair, twisting his arms up behind his back. James lashed out with his heels, stabbing at his shins.
Charnage cursed as James stamped down hard on his instep and he stumbled. He didn’t let go however, and jerked James’s arms higher up his back.
Ludwig returned to the fight and got James in a headlock, but Wolfgang was keeping his distance.
It was quite a struggle: James didn’t let up for a second. The men were stronger than him, though, and at last they got him sat down with his hands fastened to the chair behind him.
James saw with some satisfaction that Ludwig has a bloody nose and Charnage was limping worse than before. He hadn’t held out any real hope of escaping and had simply wanted the satisfaction of not going down without a fight. The brief explosion of violence had also calmed his nerves, cleared his mind and released some of his anger.
“Right”, said Charnage, pouring more gin into a fresh tumbler. “Let’s try again, shall we?”
Without warning, Ludwig viciously pulled James’s head back and clamped his nostrils shut so that he had no option but to part his lips or suffocate. Quickly Charnage tipped the gin into his open mouth, and James was forced to swallow or choke.
The gin was bitter and burnt his throat all the way down to his stomach, where it sat like a cold lump. Ludwig let him go and Charnage went over to the desk to refill the tumbler.
James sat there coughing and dribbling gin and saliva on to the carpet. He groaned. His body was already telling him that something was wrong. The stuff in his guts was bad and should be got rid of. But before he could do anything about it, Charnage jerked his head back again and emptied another glass of gin into his mouth. His throat tried to close up and he managed to spit half of the liquid out, but the other half went down.
“What I’m interested in,” said Charnage, staring into James’s face and still holding his hair, “is what exactly you hoped to achieve with your schoolboy heroics?”
“Find Fairburn,” James gasped. “Free him and stop you from doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Stop me from doing whatever it is I am doing?” sneered Charnage, with heavy sarcasm in his voice. “It’s all rather vague, isn’t it old pal?” He picked up his own drink and gazed at James over the rim of his glass. There was a look of cruel amusement in his sleepy eyes. “You don’t really have a clue, do you?” he said, sitting down.
James was already feeling the effects of the alcohol. Everything looked woozy and distant. Part of him wanted to keep his mouth shut and say nothing, another part felt reckless and lightheaded.
As ever the reckless side won.
“I know you’re building a machine,” he said, his voice slurred.
Charnage sat back in his seat and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
“Go on,” he said.
“A machine that thinks like a person,” said James, “only a thousand times faster.”
Charnage frowned and glanced back towards the woman who still sat motionless in the shadows.
James pointed the machine near the door. “Is that it, there?” he said.
“That thing?” Charnage laughed. “That’s just a toy.”
“You were working with Peterson, weren’t you?” said James. “I expect he built that one for you, didn’t he?” Maybe it’s a prototype for the larger machine, I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t know,” said Charnage wearily.
“You don’t know anything, you’re just a silly boy clutching at straws.”
“Peterson started work on the larger machine.” said James, “but he couldn’t do it by himself. You needed Fairburn, but he wouldn’t help you, would he?” Because he knew who you were making the machine for. He knew that you had done a deal with the devil.”
For the first time Charnage looked like he was taking this seriously.
“Who told you that?” he said.
“So you believe me now? said James. It’s sinking in that I do know what you’re up to.”
“Who am I working for? said Charnage coldly. James said nothing.
The truth was that he had no idea. Three of Fairburn’s clues remained unsolved.
Charnage nodded to Ludwig who stepped forward and forced more gin into James’s mouth.
He gagged, his throat desperately trying to block the poison. The gin bubbled and gurgled and some went down the wrong way into his lungs and spread fire through his chest.”

Charlie Higson: “Young Bond: Double Or Die” (2007)

See more 007 DRINKS here