FRENCH 75 April 2016
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WELCOME 3
FRENCH 75
CONTENTS OF THIS BOX 1 2 3 4
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12 oz. of Chandon Riche Extra Dry champagne 6 oz. of Hendrick’s Gin 2 lemons 4 oz. of sugar
INTRO
WHAT YOU WILL NEED AT HOME: 1
A shaker set, or a small cup and a big cup. If you don’t have those, you can also just stir them. It’s not as good, but it’ll be okay.
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Ice
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A small saucepan (or a small regular pan, or just something metal and not that big that you can heat on the stove) to make simple syrup. If you don’t have this, a measuring cup will also work.
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HAPPY APRIL! The drink you’ll be making this month is the French 75. It’s named after the Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897, which was widely regarded as the first piece of modern artillery. Like the weapon it’s named after, this alcohol on alcohol drink packs a good punch. It’s basically a Tom Collins with champagne instead of seltzer. (A Tom Collins is a gin drink made with lemon juice, simple syrup, and seltzer.) Makes you wonder what other drinks might benefit from such a substitution…
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INTRO
RECIPE ingredients 1 oz. gin 1/2 oz. lemon juice 1/2 oz. simple syrup 3/4 oz. champagne
directions To make simple syrup with heat, pour your water into your pot and turn the heat on. Wait until the water is hot but not boiling, pour in your sugar, and stir. You want to make sure the sugar dissolves completely but don’t really want the mixture to boil so you may want to turn off the heat once you’ve stirred the sugar in. Continue stirring until the mixture is completely dissolved. Leave your dissolved syrup to cool off and once cold pour it into a bottle, put a lid on and keep it in the fridge until you need to use it. 7
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If you don’t have the correct equipment to use heat to make your simple syrup, you can also dissolve 2 parts sugar in 1 part room temperature water. It’ll take longer to combine - you should leave it for about 45 minutes and stir at the halfway point. To shake your drink, first put in the ingredients in your smaller cup or the glass cup in your shaker set. Put the ice in after to minimize dilution. When you place the shaker tin (or larger cup) on top of the mixing glass, make sure to put it at an angle to avoid a “perfect seal”, which makes it hard to get off. Make sure to shake so that 8
the liquid is moving vertically from the bottom of one glass to the other. When you’re done shaking, put the glass and shaker with the glass side down and give the tin glass a good tap where it meets the glass to loosen the seal. Top with champagne and lemon for garnish if you so desire.
INTRO
VARIATIONS The classic French 75 is made with gin, but if gin makes you want to gag and crawl in a hole, you can also substitute cognac. It’s supposed to be served in a highball glass, which is pretty much just a moderate width glass. A standard 16 oz. drinking glass, or even a Mason jar, will work just fine. So your cups from IKEA will probably do the trick, but if you want to class it up, champagne flutes or wine glasses can be used as well.
If the French 75 is a little too intense for you, you can make it a French 77 by replacing the gin with elderflower liqueur and taking out the simple syrup. This will make a more floral, lighter drink.
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GIN
GIN Gin is a spirit made from a base alcohol (usually made of barley, rye, and sometimes wheat or corn) that is redistilled with juniper berries and other botanicals. Juniper berries are what give gin its’ distinctive taste (spicy and citrusy if you like it, and kind of like drinking a really alcoholic pine tree if you don’t). That being said, gin is essentially just vodka with juniper flavoring. Anyone who says they love gin but will not drink vodka is probably a bit mistaken on what’s really in their liquor. There are often other botanicals added into gin; some common ingredients include angelica root, coriander, grains of
paradise, bay leaf, cubeb, juniper berry, cardamom, fennel, lavender, citrus peel, ginger, and orris root. There has been what’s sometimes called a gin revival in recent years, leading to a new crop of experimental gins, infused with different new combinations of botanicals and juniper. History Gin has a bit of a messy history - when it was first made in England in the 18th century, the crude and often toxic mixes people made caused illness and were thought to cause misfortune. However, in the 19th century the distilling process 11
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Juniper berries are what give gin its’ distinctive taste (spicy and citrusy if you like it, and kind of like drinking a really alcoholic pine tree if you don’t)
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GIN
became standardized, making it much safer to drink. Once the distilling process became more regulated, and gin became safer to drink, gin was used for medicinal purposes. The gin and tonic was the beverage of choice for Europeans colonizing tropical climates because the quinine found in old fashioned tonic water was effective for fighting Malaria. London Dry Gin was the first standardized process for making Gin, which came about around the 19th century. It has three main requirements: there must be no sugar added, it must be flavored with juniper, and it must have a minimum of 37.5% alcohol by volume.
Some classic gin brands you might recognize BOMBAY SAPPHIRE A classic brand of gin that’s been around since 1987. It’s distilled using carterhead stills, which means that the botanicals don’t come into contact with the alcohol but flavor it through their vapors. This makes for a less aggressively flavored spirit, making Bombay a good mixer for many different cocktails. HENDRICK’S GIN Named the best gin in the world by the Wall Street Journal a few years ago, Hendrick’s uses rose petals and 13
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cucumber to create a memorably fresh taste that’s just the right side of floral. It works great in a gin & tonic and in a lot of different cocktails. The apothecary style bottle makes it a pain to pour, but is actually a smart nod to gin’s medicinal history. Some classic gin drinks that you’ve probably had or heard of MARTINI Gin and vermouth and an olive or lemon peel. Shaken, not stirred. GIN AND TONIC Fairly self explanitory. 14
(psssst – download the app ginventory if you are a huge g&t fan to find the best gin, tonic, and garnish mixes.) GIMLET Gin and lime. Originally used as a cure for scurvy, another example of a medicinal gin cocktail. We chose Hendrick’s Gin for your box. We think that the notes of rose and cucumber will mix really well with the floral and fruit flavors of the Chandon Riche, and we recommend taking a sip to try it out on its own!
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CHAMPAGNE
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CHAMPAGNE Although you’ve probably had something called champagne before, most champagne is not actually Champagne, but sparkling wine. Champagne (with a capital C) has to be made with grapes from the Champagne region in France, something they took great pains to establish in the Treaty of Madrid in 1891. Yep, really. The most well known brands of Champagne are Cristal and Dom Perignon, which are considered top quality. Cristal goes for about $270 a bottle, and Dom Perignon is about $160 a bottle, so unless you feel like splurging, your best option is probably another sparkling wine. 16
Before we get into the best brands to get for different price ranges, let’s talk about how champagne is made. If the bottle says “methode traditionelle” (traditional method in French) on it, that means that it is made exactly the same way as Champagne (from the Champagne region) is. The most commonly used grapes used for champagne are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and/or Pinot Meunier. Most sparkling wine is nonvintage, meaning the grapes do not come from one specific year, and instead are combined. So, how does the “methode traditionelle” actually work? The carbonation
Champagne (with a capital C) has to be made with grapes from the Champagne region in France, something they took great pains to establish in the Treaty of Madrid in 1891.
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in the bottle comes from a second fermentation process (after the champagne is fermented like regular wine), which is triggered by the addition of sugar and yeast to the bottle. The bottles go through a process called riddling, which just means that the bottles are periodically turned. After the second fermentation process is done, they go through another process called disgorgement, where the dead yeast cells are expelled before the bottles are topped off with a liquid called dosage, a mix of water and wine that cuts the acidity of the wine.
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We chose Chandon Extra Dry Riche for your box. This is a dry champagne that’s prepared in the “methode traditionelle”. It’s reasonably inexpensive (it clocks in at about $18/bottle), and we think it will mix really well with the rest of our ingredients. Plus, if you want to drink it on its own, it’ll still taste great.
CHAMPAGNE
Terms to look for on the bottle METHODE TRADITIONELLE OR CREMANT
EXTRA DRY
Means that the champagne is not from the Champagne region in France, but was made using the same method.
Confusingly, not quite as dry as a Brut bottle, but not quite as sweet as a Demi Doux or Doux bottle.
VINTAGE
SEC
Means that the winemaker considered the grapes used in this particular bottle to be from a particularly good year.
Although it means “dry” in French, it indicates medium sweetness.
BLANC DE BLANCS Means that this bottle of champagne was made only with Chardonnay grapes.
Literally means “half sweet” in French, and indicates a slightly sweeter bottle than one labeled “extra dry” or “extra sec”
BRUT
DOUX
“Raw” in French, indicates a dry champagne. If it says “Extra Brut” that means it is dryer than a brut bottle.
Indicates a very sweet bottle, usually considered a dessert wine.
DEMI DOUX
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The best (and safest) way to open a bottle of Champagne
1 Remove the foil from the wire cage around the cork.
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Hold down the cork with a cloth napkin or kitchen towel and twist the tab to loosen the wire cage.
Tilt the bottle away from you at a 45 degree angle to allow space for the bubbles to expand.Â
Hold the cork with one hand and twist the bottle (not the cork) with the other. The pressure should let the bottle gently force out the cork.Â
CHAMPAGNE
Additional tips Serving champagne in a champagne flute actually helps it stay fizzy longer - the thin angle of the glass exposes less of the drink to the air, keeping the bubbles from popping as quickly as in a wider glass. Red sparkling wines can be good too! We recommend Shiraz red sparkling wine (and that might be the first time you’ve heard about that grape anywhere but the Charles Shaw wine shelf at Trader Joes.)
Inexpensive bottles you won’t feel bad using to mix this drink but can but still enjoy after Look for bottles of Spanish cava (labelled Cristalino Brut), Italian Prosecco, or for a sweeter bottle, Moscato d’Asti. We recommend Martini and Rossi or Zardetto for an Italian Prosecco, and La Spinetta, La Serra, or Elio Perrone for a Moscato. Other good inexpensive brands are Chandon Riche Extra Dry, Piper Sonoma Brut, Sofia Blanc de Blancs, and Lindauer Brut, Freixenet, and Xanius.
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LEMON
LEMON JUICE Citrus is a standby in many cocktail recipes - the most commonly used ones are lemon, lime, mandarin, grapefruit, and orange, which is also used in the form of the many different types of orange liqueur.
Lucky for you, we’ve included all the lemons you’ll need in this box, so all you have to do is juice them. If you want to sub in bottled lemon juice, feel free to do so (at your own risk).
The vast majority of cocktails that you’ll come across are likely referring to freshly squeezed citrus juice when they call for it. Real, fresh limes will provide the acidic bite that we are looking for and provide a more natural flavour in the final drink. Bottled juice, on the other had, contains perservatives and other bits and pieces that generally effect the taste of the drink negatively. 23
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SIMPLE SYRUP
SIMPLE SYRUP Simple syrup is a standby in both cocktails and non alcoholic drinks (if you’re putting regular sugar in your iced tea or coffee, you should give simple syrup a try instead). To make simple syrup with heat, pour your water into your pot and turn the heat on. Wait until the water is hot but not boiling, pour in your sugar, and stir. You want to make sure the sugar dissolves completely but don’t really want the mixture to boil so you may want to turn off the heat once you’ve stirred the sugar in. Continue stirring until the mixture is completely dissolved. Leave your dissolved syrup to cool off and once cold pour it into
a bottle, put a lid on and keep it in the fridge until you need to use it. If you refrigerate your simple syrup and put a cap on it, it should last a few months at least. There are some benefits to making simple syrup without cooking it - you don’t need to wait for it to cool down, and it is a little thicker/more viscous than heated simple syrup. However, heated simple syrup will keep for longer than unheated, so if you anticipate using it up to be a problem, this might not be the best method for you. You should always be careful about keeping simple
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syrup for too long! A typical 1:1 ratio simple syrup will probably go bad after a couple months, so make sure to give it a good look and sniff before using it.
We’ve included a small jar of sugar that should make you plenty of simple syrup for this box, with a little leftover for whatever you’d like.
Pro tip: If you use a greater ratio of sugar to water (like 2:1) and add a teaspoon of vodka to your mix, it’ll last longer. Simply making the ratio of sugar to water larger can also make your simple syrup last longer, but make sure to adjust the amounts in your recipes appropriately. Recipes that call for simple syrup will be going off of a typical 1:1 sugar to water ratio.
Thanks for reading, and happy drinking!
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