James Bond is a creature of sensual appetites, the consummate gourmand, womanizer, drinker, and heavy cigarette smoker.

Bond seems to have very Epicurian tastes in meals, often giving meticulous instructions on the preparation of his food and drink as well as the ambiance of the room. His favourite meal of the day is breakfast and his favourite meal is scrambled eggs which are prepared for him by his Scottish housekeeper May Maxwell. A recipe for this meal, dubbed “Scrambled eggs ‘James Bond’,” can be located in the short story “007 in New York.”

James Bond is a creature of sensual appetites, the consummate gourmand, womanizer, drinker, and heavy cigarette smoker.

He also has an amazing knowledge of wines and spirits. Bond is famous for ordering his vodka martinis “shaken, not stirred.” In the novel Moonraker he drinks a shot of vodka straight, served with a pinch of black pepper; a habit he picked up working in the Baltic region. This was not for the flavour, he explains, but because it caused the impurities in cheap vodka to sink to the bottom. He also drinks and enjoys gin martinis, champagne, and bourbon.

In Ian Fleming’s novels Bond is a heavy cigarette smoker at one point reaching seventy cigarettes a day. On average, however, Bond smokes sixty a day, although in certain novels Bond does attempt to cut back so that he can accomplish certain feats such as swimming underwater. He is also forced to cut back after being sent to a health farm per his superior’s order in Thunderball. Bond specifically smokes a blend of Balkan and Turkish tobacco with a higher than average tar content from Morlands of Grosvenor Street called “Morland Specials.” The cigarette itself has three gold bands on the filter signifying Bond’s (and Fleming’s) commander rank in the secret service. Additionally Bond carries his cigarettes in a trademarked monogrammed gunmetal cigarette case.

In continuation novels by John Gardner, Bond cuts back by smoking low-tar cigarettes from Morlands and later H Simmons of Burlington Arcade. Later works by Raymond Benson has Bond continuing to use this brand. Cinematically, Bond has been off and on usually going with changes in society. During the films starring Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, Bond was a smoker, while during Roger Moore’s and Pierce Brosnan’s tenure he doesn’t smoke cigarettes, although he does occasionally smoke cigars. Indeed, Brosnan’s second portrayal of Bond, in Tomorrow Never Dies, remarks upon a Russian who is smoking by saying “Filthy habit”. The last time Bond smoked a cigarette on film was in 1989.

Bond has mostly meaningless affairs or one night stands with virtually every woman he encounters, and discards them the minute they become an incovenience. His suave, chauvinistic charm even seduces women who initially find him repellent, such as Holly Goodhead in Moonraker or Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies. His “ladies man” persona belies a darker side, however; in both novels and film, he is extremely sexually aggressive, and while the women he sleeps with do willingly give in to him, he does not take the initial ‘no’ for an answer. In more recent incarnations, his attitudes toward women have softened somewhat; he respects the new, female M, and a few female characters, such as Elektra King and Paris Carver, have gotten under his skin.

See also:

• Bond, James: Actors
• Bond, James: Birth debate
• Bond, James: Character
• Bond, James: Cinematic
• Bond, James: Description
• Bond, James: Early years
• Bond, James: Other drinking habits
• Bond, James: Personal Traits