Drink In Life

Henry, Harry, and the Mystery Behind the French 75 History

Posted on September 10, 2026 by drinkinlife

Searching for the Real French 75 Story

What began as a straightforward search for the origins of one of the world’s most recognizable cocktails quickly dissolved into a maze of competing names, conflicting dates, and recipes that looked nothing alike. Many of these claims have been repeated so often across the internet that they have hardened into established, unquestioned facts. Untangling them required serious digging. Old cocktail books, digitized newspapers, wartime accounts, and more internet rabbit holes than I care to admit have all become part of the search.

Just when I thought I had one piece of the puzzle settled, another archival source would introduce a different bartender, another Paris bar, or an even earlier iteration of the drink. Somewhere between Henry and Harry, wartime Paris and an American newspaper, the history I thought I knew began to unravel.

So, where exactly does the true story of the French 75 begin?

Before the French 75 Cocktail, There Was “The 75”

During World War I, the Canon de 75 modèle 1897, better known as the French 75mm field gun or Soixante-Quinze, was celebrated for its lethal speed, accuracy, and rapid fire. It was France’s most recognizable weapon of the war, and its terrifyingly potent reputation quickly attached itself to the drinking world.

One of the earliest documented references to the drink appears in a 1915 American newspaper. The report detailed a beverage called the Soixante-Quinze in connection with the famous war correspondent E. Alexander Powell, who reportedly brought the recipe back “from the front.”

This early potion combined gin, applejack, grenadine, and lemon juice. It was a far cry from the elegant, effervescent libation we recognize today.

There was no Champagne, no sugar, and certainly no elegant flute. Instead, we find a heavy-hitting spirit combo carrying the 75 name. What the newspaper doesn’t tell us is who first pulled the shaker out to create it. Powell may have brought the recipe home, but importing a cocktail and inventing it are two very different things.

The Soixante-Quinze Cocktail Appears in Wartime Paris

A year later, the historical trail crosses the Atlantic back to France. In 1916, the British publication The Sphere described the atmosphere of wartime Paris and mentioned a soixante-quinze being served at the American Bar at Ciro’s.

The lively social scene at Ciro’s Bar in Paris, a few years before it became a wartime hub for Allied officers and one of the earliest recorded homes of the ‘soixante-quinze’ cocktail.

Illustration by Sem, c. 1911. (Source: Public Domain / PICRYL)

The account described a drink featuring Calvados and attributed its invention directly to the bar’s “mixer,” though it frustratingly omitted both the bartender’s name and the exact measurements. It is a intriguing piece of evidence because it firmly places a cocktail named after the weapon inside a Parisian bar during the Great War. It doesn’t, however, neatly align with the 1915 American account that predates it. Instead, it adds another layer to a puzzle that was already growing intoxicatingly complicated. Six years later, a published cocktail manual would throw another name into the ring.

The 1922 “75” Cocktail and Henry’s Bar

In 1922, legendary Belgian bartender Robert Vermeire published his definitive guide, Cocktails: How to Mix Them. Among its pages sits a recipe simply titled the “75” Cocktail, calling for dry gin, Calvados, grenadine, and lemon juice. Once again, Champagne was entirely absent from the glass.

Cocktails How to Mix Them 75 Cocktail Recipe

Cocktails How To Mix Them – Robert Vermeire 1922-SCRIBD

What makes Vermeire’s entry crucial isn’t just the formula, but his historical commentary. He noted that the cocktail was highly appreciated in Paris during the war, named after the famous field gun, and was “introduced by Henry of Henry’s bar fame in Paris.” This text provides our first published, contemporary attribution pointing directly toward Henry’s Bar. However, modern eyes must read carefully: Vermeire chose the words “introduced by,” not “invented by.” When attempting to untangle a century-old mystery, distinctions like that matter.

Who Was the Henry Behind Henry’s Bar?

Modern cocktail historians have identified this figure as Henry Tépé, the proprietor of the popular Henry’s Bar on the Rue Volney. It is an intriguing piece of data, but as researchers, we must separate contemporary evidence from later historical consensus.

Vermeire himself only gave us “Henry.” He didn’t supply a surname or declare him the absolute inventor. While Henry’s Bar absolutely belongs in the narrative, his exact role in creating versus popularizing the drink remains a question that surviving archival documents refuse to answer cleanly. As if one unidentified Henry weren’t enough to sort out, cocktail history was about to hand me a Harry.

Harry MacElhone and the 75 Mystery

Anyone researching the French 75 will inevitably cross paths with Harry MacElhone, the titans of 20th-century bar culture and the mastermind behind Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. His name is frequently credited with the cocktail’s birth, but the primary texts tell a more nuanced story.

By 1926, MacElhone’s own Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails included a recipe for the “75” Cocktail. His version called for Calvados, dry gin, grenadine, and a dash of absinthe. The lemon was gone, and Champagne had still not arrived.

Image: Harry MacElhone-Alchetron

This drink belonged firmly to the earlier, non-sparkling family of 75s. MacElhone’s connection to the recipe is undeniable, but it is not documentary proof that he stood behind the bar and birthed the sparkling drink we pour today. Over decades of storytelling, those granular distinctions simply evaporated.

Henry or Harry: Who Created the French 75?

It is incredibly easy to see how the historical wires got crossed. We have a Henry at Henry’s Bar and a Harry who ran the most famous American bar in Paris. We have Ciro’s serving a version during the war, all unfolding within the tight-knit, gossipy ecosystem of Parisian cocktail culture. Add a century of casual retellings, and it is a short leap for Henry to become Harry, an introduction to become an invention, and a legendary bar to be crowned the definitive birthplace. The simplified version makes for a clean marketing story; the messy historical record gives us something far more fascinating.

When Did Champagne Enter the French 75?

The first evolution of the 75 and the French 75

The most interesting thread linking these early iterations is the complete lack of wine. Whether it was the gin and applejack of 1915, the gin and Calvados of 1922, or the absinthe-spiked version of 1926, none of them sparkled.

That narrative shifted completely in 1927 with the publication of Here’s How! by Judge Jr. (the pseudonym of humorist Norman Hume Anthony). There, printed in black and white, was a drink explicitly called the French 75, and Champagne had finally entered the picture.

The 1927 recipe called for two jiggers of gin, one part lemon juice, a spoonful of powdered sugar, cracked ice, and enough Champagne to fill the rest of a tall glass.

It is remarkably close to the French 75 we recognize today, although its tall, ice-filled presentation is a long way from the modern flute presentation that has since become associated with the cocktail.

The little note at the bottom of the recipe makes the distinction wonderfully simple: club soda gives you a Tom Collins; Champagne gives you a French 75 and, I would argue, a considerably better outlook on life.

This is the milestone where the name and the recognizable sparkling formula finally aligned in print. Yet even this discovery leaves the biggest question unanswered: who first decided that the earlier 75 needed Champagne? By 1927, the French 75 had arrived on the printed page, but the person responsible for putting those bubbles in the glass remains frustratingly out of reach.

Who Really Invented the French 75?

When I first began writing this piece, “Who invented the French 75?” felt like the ultimate destination. The deeper I go, the more convinced I am that pinning it on a single name misses the point entirely.

What we are looking at is not a singular light bulb moment, but a beautiful convergence of histories:

The legacy of the wartime Soixante-Quinze weapon.
The evolution of a high-proof, non-sparkling wartime tonic passed between correspondents and bartenders.
The mastery of Paris’s finest hospitality icons recording its changes.
The mid-Prohibition American adaptation that finally introduced the luxury of Champagne.

Perhaps the French 75 had a single creator. A century later, the surviving evidence simply doesn’t allow us to name that person with confidence. What it does reveal is a journey. And finding where those separate trails meet on the palate is infinitely more satisfying than forcing history into a neat, packaged answer that the archives simply don’t support.

The French 75 History Is Still Being Written

After all this digging, I have accepted that the French 75 isn’t going to give up all of its secrets easily. An old menu answers one question and raises two more. A newspaper article introduces a character but leaves out the plot. Recipes evolve, bars close, and memories dissolve into folklore.

My research is far from over, especially now that I know how many versions of French 75 history are still being repeated as fact. There are more early recipes to track down, conflicting stories to untangle, and undoubtedly a few surprises still waiting to surface.

Why 2027 Marks 100 Years of the French 75

That 1927 appearance in Here’s How! is also why 2027 will mark the centennial at the heart of the first International French 75 Day. Earlier drinks carried the 75 name, but the 1927 recipe is the earliest documented version I’ve found in French 75 history that brings together the French 75 name with gin, lemon, sugar, and Champagne in the form we recognize today. One hundred years later, on May 29, 2027, the inaugural International French 75 Day will celebrate that anniversary and the remarkable journey the cocktail took to get there. And after this much historical digging, I think I’ve more than earned the right to stop researching for the evening and make one.

Want to know how all of this research turned into an international cocktail day? Read The Unexpected Creation of International French 75 Day for the story behind the idea, why May 29 matters, and how one cocktail became a much bigger project than I ever expected.

Thanks for reading and joining me as I continue digging into French 75 history. I’d like to know what you think: who deserves the most credit for the French 75, or after more than a century of conflicting stories, is its true creator destined to remain a mystery?

About Elaine

Elaine is an international award-winning travel writer, wine writer, photographer, and WSET Level 3 wine professional who believes every destination has a story worth telling. Through Drink In Life, she explores wine, travel, gardens, books, food, and the quiet moments that make a life well lived.

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All text and images © 2017–2026 Elaine Luxton and Drink In Life LLC. Photography by Elaine Luxton / Drink In Nature Photography. International French 75 Day™ and French 75 Day™ are trademarks of Elaine Luxton. All rights reserved.

From my Roero Notebooks: A Passenger’s Perspective of the Roads

Posted on September 8, 2026 by drinkinlife

Where the Road Leads

Roads have always held a certain fascination for travelers. They promise discovery but rarely reveal much about themselves at first glance. They simply ask us to keep going, one bend at a time, never quite certain what waits beyond the next rise.

Perhaps that’s why they have inspired writers for generations. William Least Heat-Moon once wrote, “The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.” I’ve always liked that thought, not because I believe travel is about losing ourselves, but because the best journeys have a way of helping us set aside the familiar long enough to see the world, and perhaps even ourselves, a little differently.

When we travel, we naturally focus on where the road is taking us. We study maps, mark destinations, and look forward to the vineyard, the historic village, or the restaurant we’ve been hoping to visit. The road itself often becomes little more than the space between one destination and the next.

And yet, I’ve come to realize that it is often those ordinary stretches of road that quietly shape the journey. They reveal the rhythm of a place in ways no itinerary ever could.

They pass vineyards where generations of the same family have worked the land, through villages where neighbors still stop to talk in the street, and along the routes shepherds, schoolchildren, and shopkeepers have traveled for generations.

They remind us that we aren’t simply passing through a destination. We’re moving through someone’s everyday life. And this is true for the Roero region of Piedmont, Italy. Here, the landscape refuses to be ignored. The geography forces the roads to twist, plunge, and adapt, quietly shaping not only the route we travel but also the way we experience the region. In Roero, the road is never just the way to the next destination. It becomes part of the destination itself.

Where Roero Begins

Roero’s roads are not grand boulevards or dramatic mountain passes. Most are narrow country lanes that weave through vineyards, small villages, and rolling hills, rising and falling with the landscape as though they had simply followed it rather than changed it.

Some travel high along the dorsali, the narrow ridges where vineyards spill away on both sides and medieval church towers rise above distant hilltop villages. From there, the landscape unfolds almost like a painting, orderly and sunlit, inviting you to admire it from a distance.

Then, almost without warning, the road tips downward into the Rocche. The broad views disappear behind towering sandstone cliffs and chestnut forests. The road narrows. The curves tighten. Before long, you aren’t simply looking across Roero anymore.

You’re inside it.

Around the next bend, another village comes into view. A vineyard lane disappears over the next hill. A weathered farmhouse catches the afternoon light. The landscape keeps changing, quietly asking you to pay attention because every turn seems to have another story waiting.

It’s a feeling I suspect many travelers know well. A road catches your attention, not because it’s famous, but because it leaves you wondering where it goes and what you might discover if you had just a little more time.

As our bus made its way from one winery and scheduled appointment to the next, I began to notice the unhurried rhythm of those roads. There was little reason to rush. It wasn’t unusual to slow behind a tractor making its way to the next vineyard or ease toward the shoulder of a narrow lane while another vehicle passed with a friendly wave. No one seemed impatient. The road set the pace, and everyone simply moved with it.

Looking back through my photographs, I realized how often those roads appeared. Sometimes they were little more than the view from the bus window between stops. Other times they led us to a hilltop church, or a long lunch that turned into an afternoon of conversation. At the time, they simply felt like part of the journey. Nothing more.

Only later did I realize the roads of Roero weren’t simply routes on a map. They were gateways to everything that makes this region unforgettable. Before Roero, I probably couldn’t have told you much about the roads that led me to my favorite destinations. Roads were mere gaps to cross on the way. Here, they became something I looked forward to almost as much as the places they connected.

Travel has a way of encouraging us to keep moving, to check another destination off the itinerary before the day is over. Roero quietly asked me to do the opposite. To keep looking out the window a little longer. To pause longer during lunch. To wander without a plan. Somewhere along those winding roads, I stopped thinking about how much I could see in a day and started appreciating what I could experience instead.

It wasn’t until I began writing about Roero that I realized just how much of my heart had found a home along those roads. Only then did I see how those roads mirrored a deeper truth: real travel favors the curious, forces us to linger, and proves that the path itself is our greatest teacher.

I suppose it seems unusual to write random lines in my notebook about the roads of Roero. I didn’t set out to, but they kept surfacing, winding quietly through the background of nearly every memory. Eventually, I stopped thinking of them as scenery and began to understand they had been quietly shaping the way I remembered Roero.

A year ago, I probably would have talked myself out of writing an article like this, thinking that “No one wants to read about roads.” But I promised myself I was done writing only what I thought I should write. These days, I’m far more interested in writing about the things that refuse to leave me alone. Apparently, in Roero, that includes the roads.

Now I’m curious. Am I the only one who comes home thinking about the roads they traveled? Have they stayed with you too?

Continue Exploring Roero

If you’re just discovering Roero, I’ve included a few of my earlier articles below. Together, they offer an introduction to this remarkable corner of Italy and the experiences that first inspired me to return.

To discover even more about the wines of Roero, visit the Consorzio Tutela del Roero.

Thank you, as always, for reading. One of the unexpected joys of writing these notebook entries has been discovering how often our own memories spark someone else’s. I look forward to hearing yours.

About Elaine

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