The Dark Story Of How The French 75 Cocktail Got Its Name

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It's the drink of celebrations, flappers, and Lost Generation writers, but the French 75 cocktail has a history that's anything but bubbly. Behind its golden fizz lies a story soaked in war, trauma, and enough gin to take out even Hemingway. Of course, with any cocktail lore, there's always a few versions of its origin story. First of all, French 75 isn't even a year, it's a weapon — specifically, a 75-millimeter field gun that was the primary weapon for the French during World War I. 

This piece of artillery was so popular that it was often mentioned in French newspapers as their best bet to beat Germany. So it makes plenty of sense that one origin story involves a bar-owner who dreamed up a drink that packed as big a punch as this icon of modern warfare. Henry's Bar in Paris was a cozy bar for well-established American expats looking to drown their sorrows. The French bartender dreamed up his version and called it the "soixante-quinze," otherwise known as the number "75" in English. The drink's lore was the promise that it would hit with the same force as the aforementioned weapon.

Another version claims that British soldiers invented it out of necessity while fighting in France. Grabbing whatever they had on hand, they combined the ingredients and promptly drank it out of a used 75mm artillery shell. And yet another story claims it was a well-known British bartender who wanted to do a bubbly riff on a Tom Collins cocktail.

Frankly, France needed a strong national drink after its bloody and bombed-out Great War. The French people genuinely believed they wouldn't have beat Germany without their trusty 75mm gun, so the name stuck. Funnily enough, the first printed version didn't even contain champagne. The 1915 recipe calls for dry gin, apple brandy, grenadine, and lemon juice. Fast-forward a few decades, and the French 75 had successfully made its transatlantic journey. 

It also had one of its first pop culture cameos in the iconic film noir Casablanca, which was released in 1942. But the drink kept changing every time the recipe appeared in print (Apple brandy! No, cognac! Wait, absinthe?!) until the Prohibition era, when renowned bartender Henry Craddock published the definitive champagne version in his seminal cocktail book, "The Savoy Cocktail Book." Esquire even printed their own version in 1956, suggesting cognac over gin (maybe to appeal to whiskey lovers). If you're wondering if there's a difference between cognac and brandy, there is indeed.

But the gin and bubbles version endured, and became the template for the vintage cocktail we know and love today. Deceptively light and dangerously drinkable, the French 75's traumatic history is probably unknown to most of its fans, who likely think of the gin-spiked fluted drink as a symbol of celebration and good times.