The French 75 is a cocktail made from gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar. Such is the drink’s standing it is almost the very definition of a classic cocktail.
The French “75″ Cocktail
(recipe from The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock, 1930)
2/3 Gin
1/3 Lemon Juice
1 Spoonful Powdered Sugar
Pour into tall glass containing cracked Ice
Fill glass with Champagne
(it is possible to substitute powdered sugar with simple syrup and if so we
would recommend shaking the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with ice,
and strain into a champagne flute before topping off with champagne)
Created in 1915 at the Paris landmark, Harry’s New York Bar by barman Harry MacElhone, the combination of spirits was said to have such a kick that it felt like being hit by the powerful French 75mm howitzer artillery piece, thus the cocktail’s name. Arguably, it was The Stork Club in New York that made the cocktail truly iconic in the years following the war however, with its roots embedded in France and sharing similarities with cognac concoctions of the time – as always with any drink’s origins – there are many grey areas. One of the drink’s first record recipes was in The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 and Lucius Beebe from in The Stork Club Bar Book sums up its history is nicely:
“In the same family as the various versions of champagne cocktail is the celebrated French 75, an elixir which, if it did not actually have its origin in the first of the German wars, at least came to the general attention of American drinkers at that time and was immediately enshrined in the pharmacopoeia of alcohol artistry in the United States upon the conclusion of hostilities in 1919.”