Mais Oui! French-Style Cocktails Are Having a Moment

Hello, Top Shelf Society, Kara Newman here, your cocktail and spirits expert. The Paris Olympics may have drawn to a spectacular close last weekend (still thinking about that breakdancing, though), and we have a minute before the Paralympic Games start on Aug. 28. But I’ve still got France on the brain—and in my glass.

In fact, new French-inspired cocktails have been commanding attention across the US, even before the world convened along the Seine. In Chicago the white Negroni at River North’s Obélix is a French triple-threat of Citadelle gin, Salers and Dolin blanc vermouth. And at Routier in San Francisco, a Calvados vesper (French apple brandy, Lillet, blanc vermouth) features on a list splashed with pastis and Chartreuse.