The Storm:
Around this time in 1789 France was in crisis. The country was deeply in debt, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were spending extravagantly, including significant spending to support the American colonies in their effort to become independent of the British. It had gotten to the point where the government was on the threshold of disaster.
On top of that, there were crop failures that resulted in nationwide famine. There was massive unemployment. As a very harsh winter ended violent food riots broke out at bakeries, grainaries and other food storage establishments.
In an attempt to hold things together the king, for the first time in more than a hundred years, summoned an Estates-General, an assembly that divided social class into three orders: clergy (First Estate), nobility (Second Estate) and commoners (Third Estate) to create a new tax plan.
The Third Estate was comprised of over 95% of the population but it could be outvoted by the other Estates. As you might imagine, this didn’t sit well with the Third Estate and they demanded a written constitution and they formed something call the National Assembly. Over the next couple of weeks, fear that the king was going to try to quash their nascent political revolution developed.
Those fears boiled over and on July 14, when they marched to the Hôtel des Invalides to loot firearms and cannons and they went to the Bastille for gunpowder. It was, what we now call the storming of the Bastille. Its anniversary is celebrated as Bastille Day everywhere but France where it is France Day.
We don’t usually pay much attention to holidays but Bastille day this year falls on this weekend so, why not. Which leads to our cocktail and song to join in the celebration of Bastille Day.
The Gun:
Our cocktail is the French 75. It wasn’t created in France. In fact, other than the source of its name, it doesn’t have much to do with France. In 1917 the Americans adopted use of the standard French field gun, the canon de 75 modèle 1897. The gun had a reputation for accuracy and a high rate of fire and was favored by the Americans. They referred to the gun as the French 75. And, it is said that this is the basis for the name adopted for this weekend’s cocktail. Otherwise, if we were to rely on its generic name, it would be a Champagne Collins. Not quite the same.
French 75
.25 ounce simple syrup (or to taste)
.5 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 ounces gin
4 ounces chilled champagne (brut)
Add the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Fill halfway with ice and shake eight or ten times, until well chilled. Strain into a highball glass filled with cracked ice or into a chilled champagne flute or a coupe. Top with champagne, and garnish, if you desire, with a lemon twist.
About the glass, the original recipe called for a highball glass filled with cracked ice. In the current cocktail renaissance, each to his own seems to be the rule. Try all three and see which you like best.
And, about the gin, London Dry is preferred but it is also tasty with an Old Tom, such as Ransom. And, there is a small splinter that serves a French 75 with Cognac instead of gin (1.25 oz VSOP cognac, .25 oz lemon juice, .25 oz simple syrup, 2.5 oz brut champagne, all in a flute).
One other thing, some are amused by the anomaly of having a French drink based on an English spirit.
The Guitar:
Django Reinhardt was the first great jazz guitarist and he remains one of the most influential and talented musicians ever to play jazz. When he was 18 (1928) he suffered extensive burns over half his body, including a severe injury to the ring finger and pinky of his left hand. It was expected that he would never again play guitar. He relearned his craft and, while he never regained use of those two fingers, he was able to again master the guitar by focusing on his left index and middle finger and using the injured fingers for chords.
In 1939 Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli (a violinist with similar musical interests) formed their quartet Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris. It became the most accomplished and innovative European jazz group of its time.
During the 1930s Paris was a creative hotbed of artists, writers and musicians. In an interview with NPR (https://www.npr.org/2010/01/22/122865782/django-reinhardt-100-years-of-hot-jazz) Boulow Ferre, the son of Pierre Verre one of the rhythm guitarists in the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He says his father described a city bursting with talent:
"It's the Paris of Henry Miller, of the legendary restaurant and club La Coupole, in Montparnasse," Boulou Ferre says. "It's the Paris of Ernest Hemingway. It's Paris before the war. Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, Erik Satie — French musicians were under their influence. But it was also the era of swing. The arrangements of Fletcher Henderson [and] Duke Ellington's records brought a true revolution to France."
This was the environment that gave birth to the Quintette. Drawing inspiration from early American jazz, the group combined Reinhardt's intensity with violinist Stephane Grappelli's liquid tone to create its own genre.
All of this was disrupted during the war. Jazz lived on in Paris as the Germans used the city for their rest and relaxation. During their occupation of France, the Germans banned the French anthem "La Marseillaise.” Reinhardt wrote a new anthem, Nuages (Clouds). It served as a bittersweet salve for occupied France and it became Reinhardt's best-known composition. And, it is our song for this weekend.
Reinhardt died on a spring day in 1953. He was just 43. He left a legacy that is rare. He wrote over 100 songs and recorded over 900 sides from 1928 to 1953. He was the first major jazz talent to emerge from Europe and he remains both the most significant and the most influential.
Nuages on:
Friday, finally playlist on:
‘til next week.
D.