James Bond: Super spy, sex icon, functioning alcoholic. Bond’s ability to do his duty while swimming in liquor is almost as recognizable as his gadgets. One of his most famous lines (aside from saying his name as it appears in a phone book) is talking about preparing a martini for Bond’s sake! But how much did Bond actually drink? Enough to kill him seven times over.
According to an infographic from Buddy Loans (maybe they want to remind you that you can get quick cash for your next shaken cocktail?) that breaks down Bond’s units of alcohol consumed by film, the spy has consumed a total of 277 units of alcohol over the last 23 films.
To get a total blood alcohol content (BAC) from this giant drink, we would need to make a few assumptions. First, let’s assume that Bond is the mass of an average human male, or around 85 kilograms. Next we have to convert units of alcohol to grams of alcohol. With a conversion factor of 8, this gives us 2,200 grams of pure alcohol (ethanol) consumed.
Then we have to plug this into an equation dividing alcohol content and body mass to find Bond’s total alcohol content, assuming that his body is made up of an average percentage of water. The formula that the American Prosecutors Research Institute uses to determine blood alcohol content (BAC) in DUI cases gives us our final answer: a BAC of 3.7%.
While some humans have survived a BAC of past 1%, it generally holds that anything past 0.5% will either kill you or leave you seriously poisoned. Therefore, dividing the two values, Bond’s tipsy tally is enough to put a man past a safe limit seven times over. Of course, no one but an arch villain would make a man consume that much alcohol in one go. The sheer amount is still astounding.