Timeless classics straight out of 1920s Paris.

If it were possible to punch a hole in the fabric of space-time and clamber through into the era and location of your choice… well, you could do a lot worse than Paris in the 1920s, “les années folles,” as those heady post-war years were known in France.

“Every form of pleasure was welcomed,” as Mr Franck Audoux puts it in his introduction to France Moderne: Cocktails From The 1920s And 1930s (Rizzoli). “It was pleasure intensified by new entertainments, new dress codes, new music, new dance, new artistic approaches and new drinks”.

As Prohibition loomed over the US and Bolshevism claimed Russia, Paris was where the artistic spirits pitched up. It was an era of jazz and Art Deco, Ms Zelda Fitzgerald and Mr Cole Porter, automobiles and post-impressionists, Messrs Erik Satie and Henri Matisse; of garçonnes and flâneurs, Messrs James Joyce and Luis Buñuel. You could go and watch Mr Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes with music by Mr Igor Stravinsky, costumes by Ms Coco Chanel, sets by Mr Pablo Picasso. Or you could catch Ms Josephine Baker perform the Charleston semi-nude at the Folies Bergères.

And you could always finish the night at New York Bar, later Harry’s, at 5 rue Daunou – or “sank roo doe noo,” as the Americans said to the taxi drivers. Here, the Scottish-American exile Mr Harry MacElhone would mix you up sidecars or French 75s or a Volstead Act, named after the Republican congressman from Minnesota who was instrumental in banning alcohol in the US. It was Harry’s thank you for sending so many Americans over the Atlantic.

Mr Audoux is a historian-turned-barkeeper whose own establishment, Cravan in the 16th arrondissement, signals a cocktail renaissance in the French capital. His book is a handsome postcard from that whirling era, and a useful piece of cocktail scholarship, too. The author has clearly spent a long time scouring the drinks lists of venues such as La Coupole and Le Boeuf sur le Toit, as well as magazines, manuals, novels and promotional brochures from the 1920s and 1930s.

The American style of drinking really took off in France after the Grande Exposition of 1867, then spread via Anglo-American horse-racing bars, where bets could be placed between Manhattans and rarebit. The cocktail soon became a French phenomenon, too, as emblematic of the age as Ms Chanel’s new silhouettes. “Is not the cocktail related to the French apéritif? Are not the best cocktails made with French liqueurs? Should the word not be spelled ‘coquetel’?” Mr Audoux assembles a persuasive case: a centuries-old recipe from Bordeaux combining eau-de-vie and wine went by the name “coquetel”; the word “bar”, as in a place you go to drink, seems to have come from a chance remark of Emperor Napoleon III’s, too. And he cites Mr JK Huysmans’ À Rebours (1884) as a clear influence, featuring as it does a specially modified mouth-organ; in which each key dispenses a different liqueur as opposed to a different note.

Certainly, it is hard to imagine the cocktail without all those delicious French modifiers: French vermouth, the difference between a cold glass of gin and a dry martini. The devotional herbal liqueurs Bénédictine and Chartreuse, which owe something to the druidic potions of the Asterix comics. Cointreau, that unimprovable zingy-bright orange liqueur. Suze, the bitter, peppery stomach-soother. Byrrh and Dubonnet, those rich quinine-laced tonic wines. Lillet Blanc, the so-called “roi des l’aperitifs”.

It’s impossible to return to a time when all this was all brand new. But mix up a few of these and you can just about imagine yourself there.

The quintessential cocktail à la française was the rose, an aromatic aperitif, which was among the most popular orders of the inter-war era. Several versions existed (with varying quantities of gin, vermouth and cherry brandy), but kirschwasser (ie, cherry eau de vie) was a constant. This was the one served at the Chatham bar; it has some claim to being the true French martini.

Ingredients

50ml French vermouth 30ml kirsch 20ml cherry liqueur (eg, Cherry Heering)

Method

Stir all the ingredients over plenty of ice for 15 seconds, then strain into a chilled aperitif glass.

Named after the 75mm field gun, used with great efficacy by the French army during WWI, the original “75” cocktail was served at the New York Bar and involved calvados, gin, grenadine and lemon juice. Postwar, it evolved into the gin sour-based champagne cocktail still in circulation today. The recipe from the Ritz Paris, however, by the great bartender of the era, Mr Frank Meier, adds just a soupcon of French intrigue in the form of a tear of absinthe: a subtle but notable improvement.

Ingredients

30ml gin 15ml lemon juice 10ml golden sugar syrup (2:1) 1 drop absinthe Champagne

Method

Shake up all the ingredients minus the champagne with plenty of ice for 10 seconds. Fine strain into a tall glass filled with plenty of ice and top up with the champagne. Lemon zest twist makes a nice garnish.

A proto-last word, combining two quintessentially French ingredients: Suze and yellow Chartreuse, which was more popular than the green version at the time, it seems.

Ingredients

40ml gin 20ml Suze 20ml yellow Chartreuse 20ml lemon juice

Method

Shake everything over plenty of ice for five seconds an double strain into a chill coupe.

This delicious digestif was named after Mr Louis Fioupe, a drink importer of the late 1920s. It’s worth splashing out on: I used Rémy Martin 1738 with excellent results.

Ingredients

30ml cognac 25ml Italian vermouth 10ml Bénédictine

Method

Stir all the ingredients over plenty of ice for 15 seconds, then strain into a chilled digestif glass. Garnish with lemon zest twist and a brandied cherry.

French Moderne: Cocktails From The 1920s And 1930s (Rizzoli) by Mr Franck Audoux is out now