THE SENIOR

Dukes is a small bar in the same way that Fenway is small ballpark or that Humphrey Bogart, perhaps the largest man onscreen, was only 5’8’’. Its global reputation and stature completely transcend its physical constraints. To anyone who has successfully meandered around the clubland-lined streets of St. James in search of it Dukes is renowned as the font from which the world’s best Martinis flow. The Martini itself as a cocktail is an icon: if perfection is complexity in its simplest form then the Martini must be the most perfect of all things. H. L. Mencken, the notably cantankerous American critic, proclaimed that the Martini was America’s greatest gift to civilisation. Perhaps the most American of writers, (and Martini-lover himself) Ernest Hemingway had his Farewall to Arms protagonist, Frederic Henry, announce after consuming a round of Martinis, that ”I had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel civilized.” It is fitting given the history of Dukes that it was an Italian barman who mixed those Martinis for Henry in the great American novel. For close to forty years a succession of Italian maestros have been similarly serving America’s great gift to the world back to it from the lyric little bandbox that is Dukes Bar. Indeed it was in response to a challenging request from American reporter Stanton Delaplane that Salvatore Calabrese, invented the "Direct Martini" — that coolest and cleanest version of the form — at Dukes in 1985.  Delaplane, whilst staying at the hotel, had asked Salvatore, then Head Bartender, for a “very, very dry and very, very cold Martini”.  Ultimately it is the proportion of pure gin in a Martini that determines how dry the Martini is — a higher proportion of vermouth results in a wetter Martini. Now, as any Martini aficionado (or indeed mere scientist) will tell you, introducing enough ice contact vital to achieve extreme cold will inevitably result in dilution of the gin—that and the introduction of the vermouth being an obvious obstacle to the extreme dryness requested. For four successive days Calabrese tussled with the problem achieving either dryness or coldness—but never both—until he reached an epiphany.  To answer the needs of his customer Calabrese froze both the glass that the Martini was to be served in and the gin itself therefore eliminating the need for ice entirely. To perfectly control the amount of vermouth this was decanted into a bitters bottle and the slightest touch added like seasoning directly to the glass. The elimination of stirring—or indeed shaking—to bring the Martini to the required temperature was quite brilliantly revolutionary. Calabrese himself continues to recognise this too—claiming when the subject arises that God invented the world in five days whereas it only took him four to invent the perfect Martini. Delaplane was even more impressed and he rewarded Dukes and Salvatore with global acclaim; quickly reporting back to his American audience that Dukes served the best Martini in England.  Cocktail loving Americans have made Dukes a key part of their itinerary if not their UK-base for their stay entirely ever since.

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With Delaplane’s recommendation, and the many others that inevitably followed, Calabrese found the success his efforts deserved. As a obvious innovator and with an entrepreneurial spirit he further looked to extend the bars potential income despite its relatively few tables. In doing so he become so well known for the incredibly rare Cognacs which he would discover and to serve to guest that he was eventually tempted away to continue and refine that particular innovation at the Lanesborough Hotel's Library Bar when it opened in 1994. Upon his departure the mantle for Dukes was passed to Gilberto Preti who Salvatore had hired himself in 1988.

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Through his actions Gilberto Preti exhibited that he was a clear successor. In the same year that the Hemingway Bar opened in Paris, obviously elevated by it’s own association with that noted imbiber, Preti took over and established his own legacy whilst indelibly twinning Dukes with its own literary figurehead (and perhaps the only person who could sell more cocktails to men than Hemingway). In an horological twist too, like the Hemingway Bar which opened 50 years after Hemingway’s liberation of the Ritz Paris and its bar in 1944, Duke’s could lay claim to the fact that it opened in 1908 — Ian Fleming’s birth year.  Duke’s history and location in what is quite distinctly the heart of the most gentlemanly, and therefore Fleming-esque part of London, lent to its credence and clear association too.

Most notably for serious Martini and James Bond aficionados however Gilberto Preti’s name and that of the bar became synonymous with the Vesper under his direction. The Vesper, invented by James Bond in Casino Royale, is a suitably roguish form of the Martini: Against traditional convention it contains both gin and vodka and, in its original form, Kina Lillet—a bitter quinine infused vermouth. The Vesper was first concocted in the audience of an American—Bond’s closest ally Felix Leiter: