BFC’s Substitute Teacher Cocktail of the Week–Let’s Get French

Well, Sharky still isn’t back, so you’re stuck with me another week. Boo fucking hoo.

Let’s keep our travel theme going and head over to France, where I’ve somehow found myself twice this summer. It was for work, mother! (Or one of the times was at least).

At the risk of turning this into a BOTG (shut up, Balls, I know I owe you several of those), let’s take a brief look at some of the amazingness that inspired this cocktail.

One of my worst kept secrets is that I love cocktails. I love cocktails so much that when friends come over, I’m disappointed if I offer to make them a drink and they choose a beer or wine instead. I love cocktails so much that when people comment on my bar cart, I immediately show them all the other booze tucked away in cabinets that couldn’t fit on said bar cart. I love cocktails so much that imaginary friends on the Internet (that I’ve met in Baltimore, shut up) call upon me to substitute for them on their booze blogs. I love cocktails so much that it would be fair game for a third grader to say to me “if you love cocktails so much, why don’t you marry one?” I love cocktails so much that we planned a vacation around a single liquor.

That last point is not hyperbole (to be clear, nothing in that list was hyperbole). Last month, Lady BFC and I found ourselves in Annecy, France as a jumping off point to go visit a couple of locations key to the history and production of Chartreuse, the liquor so incredible that a known foot fetishist described it in a movie as so cool they named a color after it. Yes, I’m talking about Chartreuse, that spirit the monks make that the mere fact they didn’t increase production led to panic buying induced scarcity. And it was well worth the trip. I’ll spare you the details and just note two of the stops on the Chartreuse tour.

Booze stop one was the Chartreuse monastery and museum in St Pierre de Chartreuse.

Booze stop two was the former distillery site in Voiron, which also does tours, has a bar/tasting room, and still ages some spirit in the cellars.

And on my stops in Paris for work, I’ve separately been able to pop into the amazing Chartreuse store and bar right in the city. Here’s a pic with the back bar in focus instead of my actual cocktail

But hell, this is a prettier picture if I’m being honest

Can you believe those are the same location? I’d fucking live there if they’d let me. All that is to say that unlike most American home bartenders, I’m feeling good about my stock of chartreuse (fancy subset pictured below, there’s more traditional green and yellow on the bar cart).

Fun fact, you can only buy one bottle of Chartreuse VEP per household per year. That’s the yellow VEP, which means I need to get back to Paris in 2026 to buy a bottle of the green VEP.

Unless you have the deductive reasoning skills of a McCaskey or your average Cowboys fan, you have surely surmised by now that this post and its eventual libations anchor on Chartreuse. As it happens, on one of my recent trips to Paris I stayed just off the Champs-Elysee, so why not call upon the legendary Jim Meehan’s recipe for a cocktail of the same name. Though I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t first been reminded of it on reddit. Related, I need to spend less time on reddit but that’s neither here nor there.

I realize that in my last post I didn’t do what Sharky does and give some history of the cocktail, so I can do that for this sucker (by stealing, with proper attribution, someone else’s words):

The Champs Elysees was first recorded in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930. The original recipe was formulated for a party of six, and calls for the somewhat mysterious “sweetened lemon juice” without any assistance on how to make it. Attempts to scale down the recipe have resulted in a handful of interpretations, documented in various cocktail texts. Whatever your preferred formula, the Champs elegantly pairs Cognac and Chartreuse to deliver a double dose of french ingredients ready to delight any good francophile.

Thanks, Tuxedo No 2! Anyway, let’s take a look at the book where I got my recipe as well as our ingredients.

If you can’t read that, it says 2 ounces cognac, 3/4 ounce lemon juice, 1/2 ounce green chartreuse, 1/4 ounce simple syrup, 1 dash angostura bitters. I used some high end cognac here but you can generally use any cognac or brandy. I would apologize but fuck it, I’ll own the dbag reputation on this matter.

Now let’s make, shake, and drink this fucker.

First sip I get a LOT of lemon. The nose is more balanced than the taste to be honest. The herbal notes of the chartreuse come through after that and the ango is def there despite the limited quantity, but the cognac is really in the background.  It tastes a little more balanced after it warms up just a skosh (I wonder if I shook it too long, it was ice cold), and then the finish is a little dry.

My book didn’t say it, but some recipes online recommend adding a little bit of water unless you have wet ice, and I think this might have benefited from a little more dilution. I may have to make this again, for science. Also, I wonder if it might all be better with the spice of a rye, but the French may spit on that idea. Regardless, this is a drink I will try making again to see if it’s me or if it’s the drink, and then and only then will I decide if it earns a place in the rotation at home.

In fact, fuck it, let’s do it again right now (right now being weeks later than the initial draft but about a week prior to posting this sucker).

Did a couple of things different here, starting with using a VS brandy instead of a fancy cognac. I also gave it a healthier “dash” of ango and tried to let this sit a bit for more dilution. So let’s give it a sippy sip.

Like last time, first taste is very tart, although this time the nose is even more lemon (maybe because I did better on the garnish and its aromatics), and because I went with the more mellow (read: cheaper) brandy instead of the fancy cognac, that tartness dominates. Get the ango again in the background but this time the herbaciousness of the green chartreuse is definitely there. Tastes similar enough to the first attempt as to be virtually undifferentiated. Except maybe the finish. Not as much dry as still a little lemony. Lady BFC described it as “a lot.”

Now let’s amp the pretension to eleven, shall we. If you were looking closely at the last pic of all the ingredients, you might see that there were more bottles than needed for the recipe. That’s because I knew I wanted to make this again with some…more custom components. Starting with a variant of green chartreuse called Liqueur of the 9th Century from my recent Parisian haul. I’d describe it as “if you don’t like green chartreuse, don’t bother, but if you do, this is fucking phenomenal and maybe good enough for you to forget how expensive all this shit is.” So how does the same drink bringing back the fancy cognac from before and going with the fancier chartreuse?

That tastes like a totally different drink altogether. Still get the lemon up front but it’s not as overwhelming. This is also decidedly boozier, and not in a bad/astringent way but rather in a way that chills out that tartness and gives it more depth. And it’s not surprising, the brandy I used in tonight’s earlier drink was 80 proof (40% abv), whereas the fancy cognac is 92 proof (46% abv). That more than offsets the shift from regular green chartreuse’s hearty 110 proof (55% abv) to the 9th Century at 94 proof (47% abv). But the 9th century, which I drank straight up after this and holy fuck is it good, adds its own layers of complexity, slightly mellower version of the green chartreuse and it comes through after that lemon and alongside the brandy. This is a really tasty drink with components I should honestly stop mixing and start drinking straight up. I’m happy with this experiment, and if Sharky shows up at my house, I’d be proud to make him one of these in any of the permutations listed above.