What is Champagne?

Champagne is sparkling wine from the delimited Champagne region of France, made by the traditional method: a second fermentation in bottle, followed by aging on the lees. The legal name is geographic. For cocktails, what matters is dry sparkling wine with enough acidity to stand up to gin, lemon, and sugar — a structural role Crémant, Cava, or an inexpensive Brut Champagne can all fill.

A grower or vintage bottle is better drunk without gin in it. The French 75 is a sour lengthened with sparkle, not a Champagne service.

High acidity, fine persistent bubbles, and autolytic notes of bread, biscuit, or almond from aging on the lees. Brut is the mixing default. Doux or Demi-Sec will turn a French 75 into a dessert drink. Non-vintage Brut is the practical cocktail bottle; prestige cuvées are wasted once gin and lemon are involved.

The Champagne Cocktail — sugar, bitters, sparkling wine — is a 19th-century drink. The French 75 (gin, lemon, sugar, Champagne), named after a World War I field gun, is a 20th-century sour in the same family as the Tom Collins, with bubbles in place of still soda.

Neither drink requires a particular house; they require cold, dry, sufficiently acidic sparkling wine.

Shake the gin, lemon, and sugar (or syrup) with ice; strain into a flute or coupe; top with well-chilled sparkling wine. Do not shake the wine: carbonation collapses and the drink gains a foam that is not part of the template.

Chill the bottle thoroughly. If the recipe specifies Champagne and you have Cava or Crémant Brut, use it; the template will hold.