The French 75 Cocktail - - a wonderful combination of gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, top off with champagne. It’s got a great history as well, as well some differences in making it.

Welcome to the Cocktail Spirit from Small Screen Network, I’m your host Robert Hess. One of the more popular in certain circles, champagne cocktails is called the French 75. If you look through a variety of different books you’ll find some confusion what is exactly the recipe is. The very first time this recipe appears in print is in Harry Cradics, the Savoy cocktail book which is written in 1930. Other books you might look at will have various recipes for it. In here, gin is the spirit used for the French75. And in other cocktail books you’ll see brandy being used instead and quite often you have the author making some sort of a comment about being a French cocktail is of course should have brandy rather than gin. The truth is gin is the original ingredient and gin is the correct ingredient.

This cocktail was not created by the French and that’s why they don’t use brandy. It was created by Americans, it’s named after the 75 millimeter gun that the Americans we’re using in the war and therefore gin is right ingredient because the Americans felt that added the extra kick. That’s necessary to really add the armory sort of thing for French 75 gun. The drink is made simply by adding 1 ½ ounce of gin followed by ½ ounce of fresh lemon juice, followed by ¾ ounce of simple syrup. We then add our ice, and after shaking, strain it in to a champagne float and then top it off with champagne. I’m going to do a lemon twist garnish, tie in a knot and float it on the top. And there we have the French 75 Cocktail