(FORTUNE Magazine) – Before Evian, double lattes, and wheat-grass shakes, there was the three-martini lunch, the iconic noontime ritual of the corporate crowd. Now that we're returning to our old-economy ways, FORTUNE thought it was time to put this crusty business cliche to the test: Is it possible to do any work whatsoever after consuming three martinis?

Just to be clear, a three-martini lunch is not three martinis in place of lunch. (That's blatant alcoholism.) Since the cliche comes from Jimmy Carter's 1976 campaign pledge to crack down on expense-account abuses, we tried to find a locale that defined the era. (We settled on New York's legendary "21" Club.) Our drinks were "non-wimpy" and extra dry: about four ounces of gin to four drops of vermouth.

The three-martini lunch is clearly not about boosting productivity. It took us a full three hours to finish. The first hour back at the office, we kicked back and listened to Johnny Cash's Live From Folsom Prison. The work we tried to accomplish afterward was shoddy, and we smelled horrible doing it (or so our co-workers informed us). We haven't filed an expense report yet, but Jimmy Carter clearly had a point: Unless it is your job to test this practice, a three-martini lunch is a good, quick way to get fired.

--Grainger David