French 75 (1927 recipe)
Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 12.4% ABV ∙
The French 75 (1927 recipe) is gin, lemon juice and sugar, shaken and topped with dry sparkling wine, served long over ice in a highball glass.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- In the base of the shaker, stir until the Powdered sugar dissolves: Powdered sugar 3 bspLemon juice 30 ml
- Add London dry gin 45 ml
- Shake with ice and strain into the ice-filled glass
- Top with Dry sparkling wine and lightly stir
- Garnish with a lemon slice
Tips
- Stir the powdered sugar into the lemon juice until fully dissolved before the gin goes in; it will not dissolve once the drink is ice-cold.
- Add the sparkling wine only after straining over ice, and stir just once or twice to keep the fizz.
History
The French 75 (1927 recipe) reproduces the gin, lemon juice, sugar, and champagne mix that Judge Jr. published in his 1927 cocktail guide Here's How, the book credited with fixing that combination under the name French 75. Under that name it displaced an earlier and entirely different drink: Harry MacElhone's 1922 "75" in Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails, which combined Calvados, gin, grenadine, and absinthe, with no lemon juice or champagne. Judge Jr.'s drink was later reprinted under the same name in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), helping fix it as the standard still followed today.
The French 75 name traces to World War I-era Paris, where a cocktail called the Soixante-Quinze (French for "seventy-five") was named for the French army's 75mm field gun, a weapon celebrated in the press as a symbol of French firepower.
FAQ
What was the original French 75?
The first recipe printed as the French 75 is this 1927 one from Judge Jr.'s Here's How: gin, lemon juice, and sugar, shaken and topped with sparkling wine. MacElhone's earlier 1922 "75" was an unrelated mix of Calvados, gin, grenadine, and absinthe.
How do you make a traditional French 75?
Stir powdered sugar into fresh lemon juice until it dissolves, add gin, shake with ice, and strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Top with dry sparkling wine, stir lightly, and garnish with a lemon slice.
What is the difference between a French 75 and a French 76?
A French 76 uses vodka instead of gin. The lemon, sugar and sparkling wine stay the same, so it tastes cleaner, without the gin's botanicals.
How many versions of the French 75 are there?
Several well-known ones. Most swap the base spirit: vodka in the French 76, cognac in some versions. The lemon, sugar and sparkling wine stay.
