French 75
Gin, lemon and champagne, named for a field gun
Take a Tom Collins, replace the soda with champagne, and you have a drink that was named after artillery and behaves like a toast. The French 75 is a gin sour that learned to sparkle: juniper and lemon shaken bright, a little sugar to round them, then cold champagne poured over until the glass fills with rising light. It belongs to the first hour of a celebration, when the room is still arriving and every glass is being raised to something.
A sparkling gin sour from the 1920s: gin, fresh lemon juice and sugar shaken, then topped with chilled champagne. A cognac version is also traditional.
Ingredients
- 1 oz / 30 ml London dry gin
- 0.5 oz / 15 ml Lemon juice, fresh
- 0.5 oz / 15 ml Simple syrup (1:1)
- 3 oz / 90 ml Brut champagne, well chilled
- Technique
- Shaken
- Glass
- Flute
- Ice
- Served Up
- Prep
- 4 min · Easy
- Garnish
- Lemon twist; a lemon wheel if served long in a Collins glass.
- Approximate strength
- about 14% ABV in the glass (Estimate. Ethanol from 30 ml gin at 40% is 12 ml and from 90 ml champagne at 12% is 10.8 ml, 22.8 ml in total; the shaken portion of 60 ml gains about 25% dilution to 75 ml, plus 90 ml champagne gives about 165 ml and roughly 14% ABV.)
- Allergens
- Sulfites
Method
Chill a champagne flute in the freezer for at least 10 minutes, or a Collins glass if you prefer the drink long over ice.
A tall cold glass, waiting like an empty seat at a good table.
Measure the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup into a shaker tin.
Juniper, lemon and a little sugar: the quiet half of the drink.
Fill the shaker two-thirds with cubed ice, seal, and shake briskly for 8 to 10 seconds; a short shake chills without over-diluting, since the champagne will lengthen the drink.10s
A short, bright shake. The sparkle is still to come.
Double strain into the chilled flute, then slowly pour in the champagne down the inside of the glass, tilting the glass to keep the mousse from overflowing.
Pour the wine along the glass wall and watch the drink fill with rising light.
Give one gentle lift with a barspoon to combine without knocking out the bubbles. Express a lemon peel over the top and drop it in, or rest a lemon twist on the rim.
One lift of the spoon, a breath of lemon oil, and raise it to whatever the evening is for.
Flavor notes
Lemon and bread-crust champagne on the nose, juniper underneath. Crisp and dry on the palate with a fine sparkle, a little sugar rounding the acidity, and a clean citrus-pith finish. Lighter and more refreshing than most sours; the cognac version is fuller and shows dried fruit and oak.
Variations
- Cognac French 75: 1 oz (30 ml) VSOP cognac, 0.5 oz (15 ml) lemon, 0.5 oz (15 ml) simple syrup, 3 oz (90 ml) champagne, served up in a flute; Embury 1948, Arnaud's New Orleans.
- Judge Jr. 1927 Original: As adapted by Difford's: 1.5 oz (45 ml) gin, 1 oz (30 ml) lemon, 3 barspoons powdered sugar, shaken and strained into an ice-filled Collins, topped with 3 oz (90 ml) champagne. source
- French 95: 1 oz (30 ml) bourbon in place of gin, same build, served long over ice; Jones 1977.
- Soixante-Quinze: 1 oz (30 ml) gin, 1 oz (30 ml) applejack or calvados, 1 oz (30 ml) grenadine and a dash of lemon, shaken and served up in a coupe; no champagne; 1915 Washington Herald.
Substitutions
- London dry gin: Cognac (VSOP) · The Embury and Arnaud's version. Use the same 1 oz (30 ml); the drink turns rounder and more grape-led. Some bars call this a French 125.
- Champagne: Cremant, cava or brut prosecco · A dry traditional-method wine keeps the finish crisp; a sweeter prosecco means dropping the syrup to 0.25 oz (7.5 ml).
- Simple syrup: Honey syrup (1:1) · Adds a floral weight that suits the cognac version well.
- Lemon juice: Half lemon, half grapefruit juice · A softer, more bitter citrus profile for brunch service; keep the total at 0.5 oz (15 ml).
Without alcohol
Shake 1 oz (30 ml) of a juniper-forward zero-proof gin alternative, 0.5 oz (15 ml) lemon juice and 0.5 oz (15 ml) simple syrup with ice, strain into a chilled flute and top with 3 oz (90 ml) of a dry alcohol-free sparkling wine or chilled soda water with a dash of verjus. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Batching
For 8 drinks combine 8 oz (240 ml) gin, 4 oz (120 ml) fresh lemon juice and 4 oz (120 ml) simple syrup in a bottle with 2 oz (60 ml) cold water to stand in for shake dilution; refrigerate for up to four hours. Pour 2.25 oz (68 ml) of the cold base into each chilled flute and top with 3 oz (90 ml) champagne to order. Never add the champagne to the batch bottle; it goes flat within minutes.
Origin and sources
The name belongs to the French army's 75 mm field gun of 1897, which American troops adopted in 1917 and called the French 75. A drink called the Soixante-Quinze was reported in the Washington Herald in 1915, linked to the war correspondent E. Alexander Powell, but that was a short drink of gin, applejack or calvados, grenadine and a little lemon, and the same family appears as the '75' Cocktail in Robert Vermeire's 1922 book and in Harry MacElhone's ABC of Mixing Cocktails (1926 edition with absinthe in place of lemon). The recipe most of the world now calls a French 75, gin, lemon, sugar and champagne in a tall glass, first appears with that name in Here's How by 'Judge Jr.', a small Prohibition-era book from a New York humor magazine, in 1927. Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 printed it with the note that it hits with remarkable precision, and that printing carried it across the Atlantic. Gin and champagne had been drunk together long before: Charles Dickens served Tom gin and champagne cups to visitors in Boston in 1867. David Embury's 1948 book was the first to insist on cognac; Arnaud's French 75 Bar in New Orleans later made the cognac version famous.
Contested: The popular story that Harry MacElhone invented the French 75 at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in 1915 is told on many menus but is not supported by the printed record: the bar at 5 rue Daunou was simply the New York Bar until 1933, MacElhone's own books never claim the drink, and the 1915 Soixante-Quinze they are usually pointing to was a different cocktail with no champagne. Difford's reads Vermeire's credit to 'Henry' as Henry Tepe of Henry's Bar, another Paris bar, rather than MacElhone. Whether the drink is properly gin or cognac is a matter of taste rather than history: the first champagne version (1927) and the Savoy (1930) use gin; cognac enters with Embury in 1948. Glassware has also wandered: a coupe for the 1915 short drink, a Collins over cracked ice from the late 1920s to the 1980s, and the champagne flute from the late 1980s and 1990s. This record gives the gin version in a flute as the headline and the cognac version as a named variation.
- French 75 cocktail: recipes and history, Difford's Guide · secondary source, retrieved 2026-10-11
- French 75 (Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails entry), Oxford University Press via spiritsanddistilling.com · secondary source, retrieved 2026-10-11
- French 75 (Judge Jr's 1927 recipe), Difford's Guide · secondary source, retrieved 2026-10-11
- French 75 (cocktail), Wikipedia · tertiary source, retrieved 2026-10-11
Fact check: verified · Credit: The Fabled Pour editorial team