Shaken not stirred...with Finlandia vodka
Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) on product placement in the Bond films and how they've influenced America's drinking habits.
About half an hour into "Dr. No," the very first James Bond film in 1962, Sean Connery's Agent 007 gets a medium-dry vodka martini -- shaken not stirred, of course -- delivered to him in his Jamaican hotel. Historians of the spirits industry consider that drink to be a flash point in America's transition to mixing martinis with vodka rather than gin.
..."Die Another Day" represents a substantial opportunity for Finlandia, a relatively small brand in the U.S., to convert some Bond fans from Smirnoff to Finlandia. With 1.6 million cases shipped world-wide in 2001, Finlandia is the second-largest super premium vodka in the world behind Absolut. Since 1996, the vodka's growth has also been primarily in the U.S. Still, it had less than a 1% share of the U.S. vodka market last year, while Smirnoff had a 16% share.
The switch in the U.S. to vodka from gin began after World War II and gathered momentum through the 1960s, says Paul Pacult, managing director of Spirit Journal Inc., an alcohol beverage consulting and publishing concern.
Meanwhile, Bond creator Ian Fleming, an intelligence agent in Moscow in the 1930s, had developed an affection for Russian vodka. Later, when he discovered American martinis, he combined the two, according to John Cork, author of "James Bond, the Legacy: 40 Years of 007 Films," who adds that "James Bond probably did more to popularize the vodka martini itself than any other single factor."
In "Die Another Day," Mr. Brosnan sips his martini with Ms. Berry in the ice palace, a key setting of the film. The name "Finlandia" is never spoken, but Mr. Bond, with one hand in the pocket of his trademark black tuxedo and the other hugging his martini glass, stands in front of a chiseled ice bar stacked with Finlandia bottles.