Ep. 135 Lost for over 75 years: The Champs-Elysees

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 

IG: @theartofdrinkingpodcast  

 

Jules 

IG: @join_jules 

TikTok: @join_jules  

Website: joinjules.com 

 

Brad  

IG: @favorite_uncle_brad 

 

This is a Redd Rock Music Podcast 

IG: @reddrockmusic 

www.reddrockmusic.com 

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