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Shrub + French 75

By Warren Bobrow @warrenbobrow

Get ready to try my Cocktail Whisperer’s twisted take on the French 75, that classic combination of gin, champagne, lemon juice, and simple syrup. This version is actually my own hybrid of the French 75 and the traditional champagne cocktail, which calls for a bitters-moistened sugar cube, brandy, gin and a heady top of champagne. 

Fuse the two together, add a healthy whack of the zesty Squire’s Shrub and you’ve got a cocktail that’ll make your knees tremble because you get high and tipsy at the same time. It’s really unexplainable, you have to try it yourself. In the same way that alchemists of old attempted to turn base metals into gold, champagne can turn your plain old Tuesday afternoon into a full-on, hat-waving celebration. Be sure to keep a bottle on hand so you can whip these up the next time you find yourself hosting an impromptu shindig. Make a few batches of the Squire’s, if you dare—just keep that bottle of Fernet Branca on hand to help ease your head for the morning after.

Recipe: The Squire’s Shrub

Ingredients

  • 1 Demerara sugar cube or a teaspoon of Demerara Sugar 
  • Several dashes of lemon bitters (Fee Brothers works)
  • ½ ounce Rhum Agricole Vieux (Fresh Sugar Cane juice distilled into Rhum Agricole, then aged in either French Oak casks or once used Bourbon cask…. From Martinique) 
  • ½ ounce (15 ml) botanical gin such as the popular, rose scented Hendrick’s Gin (infused with a bunch of THC ) 
  • (I used 28 grams per 750ml bottle, then slowly infuse in the gin over a couple weeks, strain and use in cocktails)
  • 2 ounces (60 ml) Squire’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub
  • 1 1⁄2 ounces (45 ml) champagne or dry sparkling wine
  • 1 long lemon zest twist

Process

  1. Add the sugar cube to a champagne flute and moisten with the lemon bitters. Then add your thc infused gin, Rhum Agricole Vieux and the Squire’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub. 
  2. Top with champagne. 
  3. Garnish with a long lemon zest twist. 

Pro Tip: To prepare this libation, combine very finely chopped lemon zest and crushed Demerara Sugar, wet the rim of the glass with lemon, and dip the glass into yellow-colored sugar. Voila!