Now and then, I revise a classic scene from the Bond movie “Goldfinger,” when the villain has strapped the rakish British spy down and is about to dismember him with an enormous laser.

“Do you expect me to talk?” Bond asks, eyeing the laser’s progress toward him.

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,” Goldfinger says.

In my version, Goldfinger turns back and hisses, “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to apologize for the damage you have done to the martini.”

Having daydreamed of this for years, I laughed aloud when I arrived at the James Bond-related part of drinks writer Robert Simonson’s terrific new book, “The Martini Cocktail.”

“This chapter will be short, because I find its subject such an irritant,” Simonson writes. “Since at least the 1970s, no journalist has gotten away with writing about the Martini without addressing James Bond. Often they begin their story with Bond. Because Bond, more than sixty-five years after writer Ian Fleming dreamed up the suave British superspy, is still the first thing many people think of in connection to the Martini.”

I guess it’s too late to rethink my lead?

Simonson goes on to explain our shared pique: Bond’s famous “shaken, not stirred” order is infamous in the cocktail world (martinis, most agree, should not be shaken), as is the fact that Bond usually orders the drink with vodka, a spirit with much less complexity than gin.

Simonson and I made no such gaffes when we sat down recently for martinis at Maison Premiere in Brooklyn. The restaurant’s Old King Cole martini (one of dozens in Simonson’s book) combines Old Raj gin, Mancino secco vermouth and Angostura orange bitters. Presenting it is a two-person job: One server holds the tray of ingredients; another assembles, stirs and pours the drink tableside, served with a choice of garnishes — olives, lemon peel, seaweed — and a tiny spoon of caviar, if you like. We liked.

Our drinks came with a story, the server explaining that the Old King Cole name is based on the tale that the martini originated at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, whose bar had a Maxfield Parrish mural of Old King Cole.

“The story is nonsense,” Simonson noted, but the resulting martini is all it should be.

Simonson drank hundreds of martinis researching his book, which delves into the drink’s fascinating history and faux histories, its spinoffs, the evolution of preferences around gin vs. vodka. And, of course, it touches on the vermouth-to-spirit ratio, long one of the greatest points of debate about the drink.

His desire to write the book, in fact, was inspired by a martini recipe competition he wrote about. He was one of several judges on the panel, which tasted 27 variations and chose a winner far lower in vermouth — much closer to the older style — than the 1-to-1 ratio lately heralded in the cocktail world.

His article reporting the results came out, “and people flipped! They were so mad that a 50:50 did not win,” Simonson says. “I was just kind of amazed by the response. And it occurred to me: People are still getting upset about martinis! After 135 years, they’re still angry about this drink, and they’re still arguing about it.”

Lots of people have a preference about their martinis, and if you’re hosting, it’s smart to find out what it is. Here is how to approach the variables while understanding the rules:

Choose your base. Gin is the classic choice, and many will argue, a better one than vodka. But gin-haters do exist, so you’ll need to check. You might try a Vesper, a martini variation that combines gin and vodka.

Decide your spirit-to-vermouth ratio. Many people have come to understand that good vermouth is a thing of beauty. But those raised on ultradry martinis may not have come around yet. Ratios range from the contemporary 50:50 to a scant whisper of vermouth. A 5-to-1 or 4-to-1 gin-to-vermouth split is a good starting point.

Nail the garnish game. The choice of an olive or a swath of expressed lemon peel changes the whole drink. Add a cocktail onion, you’ve got a variation known as a Gibson. Add olive juice for a dirty martini, or an olive stuffed with blue cheese. Different bitters can also bring out new flavors.

Serve it very cold and properly diluted. A hefty pour of spirit and vermouth, the martini needs the dilution it gets when stirred with ice. Treat the process patiently, and remember to chill your glassware.

Remember, ingredients vary. If you delve more deeply into martinis, tasting for nuances of flavor, you’ll start to understand why people still argue about them. One gin is not the same as the next. Ditto the vermouth, ditto the bitters, and each combines with the other ingredients a little bit differently.