In 1925, an American novelist and a British food critic walked into a French restaurant in London and changed cocktail history; even if nobody noticed for about seventy-five years.
This episode traces the remarkable origin story of the Champs-Élysées cocktail, beginning with the unlikely partnership behind Drinks - Long and Short, the book that first put the recipe to paper. We explore who Nina Toye really was (a supernatural thriller novelist, a Vogue contributor, and one of the few women of her era to put her name on a cocktail book, above her male co-author no less) and what her presence in this story tells us about how women have always thought about drinks differently. We follow the thread to A.H. Adair, whose role as drink-maker for chef Marcel Boulestin's celebrated London restaurant gives the book its true context: not a bartender's manual, but a love letter to a table, a season, and a moment.
Along the way, Brad and Jules explore what it means that this drink (named not for a technique but for a feeling, a boulevard, a place you want to be) was born from a distinctly holistic way of thinking about cocktails. One that asked not what's the correct spec but who's there, what are we eating, and what does the occasion call for. It's a question that Nina Toye was answering in 1925, and one that the best home entertainers are still asking today.
Plus: Cognac, Green Chartreuse, a French chef who famously hated cocktails, and a drink that disappeared for half a century before the craft cocktail renaissance brought it back to the glasses it always deserved.
Champs Elysees
Ingredients:
2oz Cognac – Pierre Ferrand Ambre
0.5oz Green Chartreuse – or a suitable alternate
0.75oz Fresh lemon juice
0.5oz Simple syrup
1 dash Agnostrua Bitters
Add to a shaker and shake with ice.
Double strain into a chilled coupe
Garnish with a lemon tiwst
Yuzu Champs Elysees
Ingredients:
1 oz Japanese whisky, Suntori Toki
½ oz Cognac
½ oz Green Chartreuse
¾ oz yuzu
1/2 oz honey 2:1 to help balance the yuzu tartness
Add to a shaker and shake with ice.
Double strain into a coupe
Garnish with a dehydrated citrus wheel
Optional: dust the rim with a citrus sugar salt
TIP: Citrus ins and outs
The Art of Drinking
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Jules
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Website: joinjules.com
Brad
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