Ginuary 1st: French 75.

On the first day of Ginuary, my true love gave to me: the French 75. This guy is perfect for your celebratory drinks, and seeing as I decided I was going to begin my Ginuary celebrations as soon as the clock had struck midnight and we’d all set off our party poppers and run around the backyard with our sparklers…. the French 75 seemed a no-brainer.

French 75

• 60ml gin
• 30ml sugar syrup
• 30ml lemon juice

 

With ice, shake all three ingredients well and then strain into a champagne flute. Top with champagne (carefully).

 

This drink is pretty bad-ass. Apparently it was created during the first World War because one fighter pilot decided champagne on its own wasn’t kicking his butt enough. The French 75 (named after an artillery gun; IT’S LEGIT) is an awesome celebratory gin cocktail. A comment on this about.com page is from a veteran who claims he drinks one every Veteran’s/Remembrance Day. That’s something I can get behind.

There are a lot of tweaks to the French 75 going around. To be perfectly honest, the variation I ended up choosing was from an iPhone app called iBartender. I’m not going to lie to you, dear readers. I’d had a number of celebratory new years drinks prior to ringing in Ginuary with a round of French 75s for my friends. I needed a recipe in a hurry, so I pulled up the app and the recipe felt familiar enough.

The midnight round of French 75s was prepared in my kitchen at home in the middle of a new years party. Our house had a small gathering of a dozen or so people, most of which were almost as excited for Ginuary as I was, so when the countdown was over we rushed into the kitchen and set up a line of plastic cups – the classiest way to serve.

I wielded my shiny new double jigger with finesse.

Dash diligently rushed back and forth from the fridge as I shouted instructions at him. “THE SUGAR SYRUP. NOW THE LEMON JUICE. IT’S AT THE BACK OF THE MIDDLE SHELF SOMEWHERE. I’M DONE WITH THIS. PUT THIS BACK.”

Liz had brought a bottle of Veuve Clicquot with her, so a couple of us drank in style. The rest of the gang got an Australian sparkling called Seppelt Fleur De Lys. Everyone seemed quite happy with their lot, and I did a dramatic “CHEERS TO GINUARY” from the end of the back deck.

So the whole thing was fairly successful. Despite the absolute lack of style in my serving, the French 75 proved to be super tasty and a wonderful choice to start it all. The rest of the evening’s celebrations continued on with glee, and then this morning I was in a great amount of pain. I did it to myself. I know. Please talk quietly.

I spent most of today in recovery mode, with some shorter bursts of cleaning mode coming and going. In order to get some decent photos, and for the opportunity to drink another one, I  poured out another French 75 for myself as twilight fell.

Just as tasty. I remember last night’s version being absolutely delicious, and this afternoon’s was slightly different – variations were the types of sparkling and also the amount of sparkling. Obviously there’s a LOT less in a champagne glass as there is in a plastic tumbler. A number of the different recipe listings I’ve come across for the French 75 say to serve in a Collins glass with a buttload of ice, but the alternative is the champagne flute. Maybe once there’s ice involved, the difference between the amount of sparkling is actually not so great? Never mind.

I’m so glad Ginuary is finally here. Meanwhile, I’ll end this post with a lovely photo of my backyard from last night. I left the setup there for tonight, too, as some friends came back over and we had brinner (breakfast for dinner). What a wonderful way to bring in the new year.

Posted by Miss Ginuary | 1 comments