A cognac sour with an herbal perfume: brandy, lemon and a touch of sugar are lifted by green Chartreuse, whose 130-botanical sweetness gives the drink its aroma and its backbone. Served up and cold in a coupe, it drinks bright and tart at first, then turns warm and herbaceous, with a dash of Angostura sharpening the edges and a lemon peel adding a last spark of oil.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Combine cognac, green Chartreuse, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Angostura bitters in a shaker.
shake
Add ice and shake well until cold and well-diluted.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe, served up.
garnish
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
No one is credited with inventing the Champs-Élysées — it surfaces in print first in Nina Toye and A.H. Adair's 1925 Drinks Long and Short, and again five years later in Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book, both compilers who recorded the drink rather than claiming it. Craddock's version, written to serve six, called for three glasses of cognac to one each of Chartreuse and sweetened lemon juice, plus a dash of Angostura, shaken and strained. Modern bartenders tend to stretch the sweetened lemon a little beyond that ratio, and the drink is widely treated as an herbal cousin of the Sidecar.