Clinton Cawood dusts off the vintage cocktail books to rediscover the Negroni alternative, Lucien Gaudin.
An under-appreciated classic for Negroni fans and sceptics alike, and indeed for followers of the Olympic sport of fencing, the Lucien Gaudin appears decidedly Negroni-like on paper, with its gin, Campari and vermouth, but employs dry vermouth rather than sweet, and adds triple sec. Served up in a coupe or cocktail glass, the result is a starkly different drink – spirit forward, yet lighter and more lifted.
It made its first appearance in print in 1929, in Cocktails de Paris Présentes, with Cointreau called for by name, and specifying three parts gin to one part each of the remaining ingredients, although many contemporary takes are made with two parts to one. The same publication credits the drink to someone called Charlie, at Le Cheval Pie in Paris, and that’s about all that’s known of its origins.
We know a little more about Gaudin himself, by all accounts the greatest French fencer of his time, but fated – through circumstances including military service and various badly-timed injuries – to only win Olympic gold in Amsterdam in 1928, at the age of 42.
Incidentally, if you take the same ingredients, but give the gin and dry vermouth centre stage, you get the Gloria, attributed to French actress Marie Glory around the same time as the Lucien Gaudin.