This French 60 Is In Such Good Shape

Hey, hey, hey! It’s Bastille Day, which commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution with the Storming of the Bastille in 1798. It’s a lot like our Fourth of July — so let’s celebrate with some goddamn drinks! In preparation for raising a glass to all the wonderful things France has to offer lately, I’ve whipped up a remix of the classic French 75 cocktail. It’s basically a ginger French 75 called the French 60 (I’ll get to that number thing in a minute).

Cocktail lore says the OG version was created at the New York Bar in Paris in 1915 and is named for a piece of French artillery. It’s made with gin, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, simple syrup, and Champagne. My take, the French 60, is made with ginger liqueur instead of gin (see what I did there?!?!), and I don’t add any simple syrup or sugar since the liqueur adds just enough sweetness. For this one, I used the perfectly spicy Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur. (Full disclosure, they sent me a bottle to play with after I gave them a shoutout in a post, but I’ve purchased it with my own damn money before so there.)

Speaking of spice, that’s where this cocktail gets its name. According to some dude on the internet, if ginger were to be ranked on the Scoville Scale (mostly used to measure the spiciness of peppers) “it would have a rough rating of 60,000 Scoville Heat Units.” Sure, dude. That sounds about right. We’ll go with that. But for the record, this drink isn’t spicy at all; it just has a hint of gingery sweetness.

The French 60 (A.K.A. Ginger French 75)

INGREDIENTS

¾ ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice (I like to strain it for this one)
1 ounce ginger liqueur
Chilled champagne
Lemon twist (or candied ginger!) for garnish

DIRECTIONS

Add the lemon juice and ginger liqueur to the bottom of a coupe, champagne or stemless wine glass. Top it off with champagne, garnish, and enjoy. À votre santé!

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