French 75 or 76

[birder53]

Enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Stage House in Scotch Plains, NJ last night. Five course tasting menu with wines and an open bar. I decided to have a champagne cocktail to start and asked for a French 75, which I thought was gin, cointreau and lemon juice topped off with champagne. I received a champagne flute with cognac, lemon juice, simple syrup and champagne. Not what I had expected but it was a good drink. I had mentioned to the waiter that it was made with gin, but he wasn't the one making the drinks.

This morning I dragged out a few cocktail books to find out where I went wrong with my request and only became further confused. Mardee Regan's book has a French 75 and a French 76, the 76 being made with cognac, the 75 with gin. Craft of the Cocktail lists only the French 75 and uses brandy. According to Drink Boy, this is a gin drink. Is there a correct answer here?

[ScorchedPalate]

I suspect this falls into the Vodka Martini category: What's right ain't necessarily what's happening in the world.

I love what Drink Boy says on this matter:

Some people claim this drink should use cognac instead of gin. Those people would be wrong.

That said, I prefer the variation with Cognac. In my view, though, drink variations that are so substantial as this should have a different name from the original. I like the idea of calling it a French 76.

[ScorchedPalate]

Or you could call it a French 16, the 2-digit code for the departement of Charente, where you'd find the town of Cognac. At least people would know that you didn't mean "75", which would be my fear with calling it a French 76.

~A

[edited for clarity]

Edited March 27, 2005 by ScorchedPalate (log)

[DrinkBoy]

The "cognac/brandy" variation is a result of people coming to an incorrect conclusion regarding this drink.

They think to themselves "French 75? Why surely that should be made with a French ingredient like Cognac, and not a British ingredient like gin."

The issue, is thinking that this drink was created by the French, which is most likely was not. It was just named after a piece of french artillery, and it was either created by a brit, or the creator thought that gin had more of a 'bang' to it.

There are a variety of "take-offs" of the French 75, simply changing the number to something else as an indication that it is a different drink... this unfortunatly doesn't take into account that the "French 75" is referring to an artillery piece and not just a numerical sequence. Personally I'd love to see these creative folks, who create great champagne based cocktails, to spend just a little more time coming up with a proper name for them :->