The Summer Sips 2024 edition of Food Friday is coming to you from a Parisian daydream. We like to try a variety of cocktails every summer, and this year there is a theme: the Paris Olympics.
As you know, The Summer Olympic Games are being held in Paris, the City of Lights, a city known for its romantic allure, high fashion, gourmet food, art history, and famous landmarks. During the Olympic opening ceremony Paris was alive with absurdist spectacles – art coming alive, paintings fleeing museums, colorful tableaux, and athletes waving in the rain. Paris is a great city for walking (my favorite athletic activity): down the paths along the Seine, past Notre Dame, beneath the Eiffel Tour, in the gardens at the Tuileries, outside of the Louvre, inside the Louvre, and along the Champs-Élysées we have been walking, taking in the international culture while watching all the young athletic champions sent to compete here.
Paris is the perfect fantasy getaway location. When I daydream about Paris, it’s pre-war and I see myself sitting at the bar in Harry’s, sipping a French 75, laconically handing Ernest Hemingway a box of matches so he can light my Gauloises cigarette while he is plying me with heady cocktails. (If I am having fantasies, I might as well go all the way.) Be careful with French 75s – they do pack a wallop.
The 75
Ingredients:
1 1/2 ounces gin (note: we use cognac)
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
3/4 ounce simple syrup
2 ounces Champagne
Lemon twist garnish
1. Add gin, lemon juice and simple syrup to a shaker tin, shake with ice and double strain into a champagne flute.
2. Top with champagne and garnish with a lemon twist.
French 75
The 75 is the preferable alternative to “The Death in the Afternoon” – known as the “Hemingway Cocktail” which is a 1:1 ratio of Champagne and Absinthe. I respect my dwindling brain cells too much to try this, but you might have a surplus: The Death in the Afternoon Hemingway suggested drinking three to five of these in one sitting. Slowly. No wonder he died young.
Snoop Dogg has been ubiquitous at these Olympics. Snoop has traveled with the US Olympic team, popped up in the stands in perfectly memed poses, and he’s even carried the Olympic torch. Here’s to Snoop and his swimming coach, Michael Phelps! In the pool with Snoop and MP
Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice
30 ml gin
30 ml apple vodka
60 ml pineapple juice
Wedge of pineapple, to garnish
Lime slice, to garnish
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the gin, vodka, and pineapple juice. Stir well. Strain into a rocks glass and garnish with the pineapple and lime.
Other notable cocktails for your Olympic qualification trials:
The Champs-Élysées
This cocktail is named after the famous Parisian avenue and combines cognac with Yellow Chartreuse. Exotique!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 ounces Hennessy V.S
3/4 ounce Yellow Chartreuse
1/4 ounce lemon juice
3 dashes of Angostura bitters
Garnish with lemon zest
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well chilled, then strain into a tumbler and garnish with lemon zest.
Back home we don’t need all of the fancy liqueurs, accents and bubbly. We can misbehave American-style.
We don’t need something fancy. An Old Bay Martini!
Lots has happened this summer. We’ve missed Wimbledon, but surely there is a croquet game in our future before school starts again? In which case, Pimm’s Cups are in order:
Not every drink has to be alcoholic. There are plenty of non-boozy ways to cool off this summer, too. Mr. Sanders is very fond of an Arnold Palmer – simple, thirst quenching, IG-ready:
Go USA!
“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.”
—Michael Phelps
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