Variants (12)
Recommended The Bar-Tender's Guide by Jerry Thomas (1862, p.70) — Jerry Thomas 1862
- Build the ingredients carefully in a small wine-glass.
- Serve without dilution.
- Nose
- Orange and bitters lift the small measure of brandy immediately.
- Palate
- It is compact, bittersweet, and more spirit-led than the liqueur-heavy pousse-café drinks.
- Finish
- The finish is short, warming, and aromatic.
- Summary
- A miniature café bittered cordial that sits between cocktail seasoning and pousse-café richness.
Champerelle is useful because it shows this after-dinner family borrowing from cocktail seasoning without becoming a cocktail proper. Thomas's section preserves that porous boundary between café cordial and bar mixture.
Because the drink is so small, proportion errors are magnified. The bitters should season, not dominate.
Brandy Champerelle shows the layered after-dinner family in a more austere, spirit-and-seasoning mode than the sweeter pousse-café entries.
Recommended How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion by Jerry Thomas (1876, p.72) — Jerry Thomas 1876
- Build the ingredients carefully in a small wine-glass.
- Serve without dilution.
- Nose
- Orange and bitters lift the small measure of brandy immediately.
- Palate
- It is compact, bittersweet, and more spirit-led than the liqueur-heavy pousse-café drinks.
- Finish
- The finish is short, warming, and aromatic.
- Summary
- A miniature café bittered cordial that sits between cocktail seasoning and pousse-café richness.
Champerelle is useful because it shows this after-dinner family borrowing from cocktail seasoning without becoming a cocktail proper. Thomas's section preserves that porous boundary between café cordial and bar mixture.
Because the drink is so small, proportion errors are magnified. The bitters should season, not dominate.
Brandy Champerelle shows the layered after-dinner family in a more austere, spirit-and-seasoning mode than the sweeter pousse-café entries.
Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks by William Terrington (1869, p.200) — Terrington 1869
- Combine the Curaçao, brandy, and bitters with ice and serve.
Ice: Ice
The name is uncommon enough to justify preserving this compact spec.
It is closer to a liqueur-accented aromatic than to a lengthened drink.
American and Other Drinks by Leo Engel (1878, p.54)
- Build in a wine glass.
Ice: None
The Police Gazette Bartenders Guide by Richard K. Fox (1888, p.15) — 1888
- Layer the brandy, maraschino, and Angostura in equal thirds in a sherry wine-glass.
- Keep the colors separate.
- Summary
- A tiny layered cordial service preserving visual striping as part of drink identity.
This is useful because it keeps the small layered after-dinner drink world attached to late working-bar practice.
The separated color bands are the point of the drink.
Compared with Brandy Scaffa, this uses bitters more overtly and presents a tighter three-part striping logic.
Cocktail Boothby's American Bar-Tender by Wm. T. Boothby (1891, p.37)
- Layer equal quantities of the ingredients in a sherry glass in the order given.
- Serve with ice water on the side.
This is a useful layered-service checkpoint because it preserves a slightly different after-dinner miniature from the better-known pousse-cafe forms.
The drink depends on careful layering and not allowing the ingredients to mix.
The Complete Buffet Manual or How to Mix Fancy Drinks by J. E. Sheridan (1901, p.23)
- Layer the Curacoa, middle liqueur, and brandy in a small wine glass.
- Add the bitters and serve without mixing.
This is a useful checkpoint for the tiny layered cordial class that runs beside the pousse-cafe tradition.
Sheridan's small-wine-glass service keeps this in the one-sip cordial family.
American-Bar: Boissons Anglaises et Americaines by Frank P. Newman (1904, p.6) — Newman 1904, No. 18
- Pour curacao, Benedictine, and cognac gently without mixing in glass no. 11, add two drops Angostura on the surface, and serve.
Ice: None
Drinks as They Are Mixed by Paul E. Lowe (1904, p.17) — Lowe 1904
- Build the ingredients carefully in a small wineglass in separate layers, as with a champerelle or pousse-cafe.
- Finish with a light dash of Angostura bitters and serve.
- Nose
- Orange, herbs, anise, and bitters create a concentrated after-dinner nose.
- Palate
- This entry shows the layered after-dinner tradition surviving in reduced miniature form, with the exact middle cordial left to house or customer choice.
- Finish
- The finish is sweet, herbal, bitter-edged, and lingering.
- Summary
- A compact layered cordial from the after-dinner miniature tradition.
The Hoffman House Bartender's Guide by Charles S. Mahoney (1905, p.168)
- Layer the red curacoa, Chartreuse, anisette, and kirschwasser or brandy in a sherry wine glass.
- Use a sherry glass instead of a spoon for pouring so the liquors do not mingle.
Layer preservation is the whole point of the drink.
The Buffet Blue Book by John H. Considine (1912, p.22)
- Layer the curacoa, anisette, yellow Chartreuse, bitters, and brandy carefully in a wine glass.
- Keep the colors from mixing and serve.
A careful layered service, even though the technique field is normalized to built in glass.
The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book by Albert Stevens Crockett (1935, p.105)
- Build and serve cold.