Shaken and stirred: Ukraine war hits James Bond’s glassmaker

By John Leicester

(AP) –LA CHAPELLE-SAINT-MESMIN, France (AP) – Iconic French tableware brand Duralex is joining a growing array of European firms that are reducing and halting production because of soaring energy costs provoked by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Duralex Gigogine Tumbler

At the glassmakers’ plant in central France, workers are preparing to put the furnace into a slumber for at least four months.

The 77-year-old company counts generations of French schoolchildren, Mongolian yak herders and Afghan diners among worldwide users of its glasses, bowls and plates.

Actor Daniel Craig drank from one of its “Picardie” tumblers when playing James Bond in “Skyfall.”

Duralex’s thunderous machines that turn incandescent blobs of molten glass into hundreds of thousands of tableware items each day will fall silent on Nov. 1.

For more world news, click here.