What is there not to like about this drink? After all it brings gin and champagne together. The French 75 is a cocktail held in such high esteem that it falls easily, though with the elegance and grace one would expect of a high-society French Madame, into the realm of a classic cocktail. This drink is a tapestry of gin and bubbles, gracefully woven together to turn you into a carousing debauchee. The French 75 is one to turn to in times of celebration; to raise your glass and ring in the new year, the new baby, the new job, the new… teapot. Yep, that will do. It’s also a perfect cocktail to serve as an aperitif as the bubbles will help lift the mood in no time.
History informs us that this was named after the French 75 field gun from WW1. Perhaps it was the explosive and intoxicating effects of Champagne and gin that caused Harry McElhone, the bartender credited with the drink’s invention, to name his cocktail after the deadliest weapon of the WWI era.
Ease of Making: Easy
Glass Type: Champagne Flute
Taste: Zingingly freshing
Original Recipe:
- 50ml Explorer’s Gin
- 7.5ml Sugar syrup
- 15ml Lemon Juice
- Champagne or Prosecco.
Method:
- Place ice into a cocktail shaker
- Add the lemon juice, sugar syrup and gin
- Shake your shaker
- Strain into champagne flutes
- Top up with Champagne
- Garnish with either lemon peel or add a fortified cherry to it
Our Valentines Twist:
Use pink champagne and garnish with either a raspberry or strawberry.
Notes from a Bar Tender:
‘Putting the theory to the test, after your third French 75 it becomes worryingly evident why the drink was named after a 75mm field gun’ Taken from the Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace.
