French Tart – Elderflower Cocktail Recipe

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Last Updated on March 26, 2024 by Leah Hall

This elderflower cocktail is a great flavor combo with floral notes of of elderflower liqueur, gin and grapefruit juice!

 

We occasionally run across recipes that immediately pique our interest, many times from fellow food bloggers. Usually we end up putting these interesting recipes on our list of things to make! This is usually because we don’t have the ingredients right at hand so it takes us a while to get around to making them. Since this recipe featured elderflower liqueur we knew we would love it. We have quite a few elderflower cocktail recipes made with St Germain or other elderflower liquors.

 

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Some other suggestions are Normandy, Lumiere, Red Hound, Where the Sea Meets the Sky, St Pisco Smash, and more!

 

For this St Germain cocktail, we just happened to have everything in house so we just jumped behind the bar and let the inspiration flow! With the name of this cocktail being the French Tart, we used some French gin! Some well known brands are Citadelle, G’Vine, Diplome and more.

 

This recipe is inspired by the fine folks over at Nerds with Knives, who posted this recipe over on the Cocktail section of Reddit. This is where some serious cocktail nerds hang out (hi there fellow cocktail fanatics!) Like us, a bunch of the cocktail fanatics immediately nerd-ed out on this drink recipe. Then started throwing out their takes on the drink, which was awesome to see all the variations that were created.

The original recipe called for vodka as the base spirit, but we love the way that grapefruit and the herbal note of gin work together.  So then we decided to swap out the vodka for gin which worked out really well, which we love in elderflower drinks. We are definitely thinking a floral daiquiri or thyme elderflower gimlet, too!

 

The gin is bold enough to stand up to the sweet and sour notes of the grapefruit, and was a great base for the herbal parts of the French Tart.

What Ingredients are Needed for the French Tart?

• Gin – make sure to use a London Dry Gin which will play well with the floral liqueur. This will give a perfect balance for this easy cocktail. Just use your favorite gin.
• Elderflower Liqueur – we used St Germain Elderflower Liqueur, but there are other brands. Elderflower cordial or elderflower syrup is also an option if you cannot find the alcoholic version. Or you can make the cordial or syrup yourself. This adds a floral taste to the cocktail.
• Grapefruit Juice – as always fresh squeezed grapefruit juice is the best option. Try fresh grapefruit juice in our Rosemary’s Blush, Rosada, Grapefruit London Mule or Rio Rose!
• Rosemary Simple Syrup – make our homemade rosemary simple syrup for this recipe, which is easy to make and adds some great herbal notes from using fresh herbs in the syrup.
• Lemon Juice – Make sure to use fresh lemon juice as always!
• Sage Bitters – this one is actually a hard ingredient to find. We had sage bitters from a brand in Colorado, but they no longer make it. You can use these bitters as a close sub if you want to buy them. But, if you can’t or don’t want to buy, you can use Aromatic bitters, or if you have Bitterman’s Scarborough Savory bitters, or Bittercube Trinity bitters, can both get close.

 

The French Tart is a great combination of sweet and tart, with herbal hints that add an interesting depth to this perfect drink. Sweet rosemary syrup gives a fresh sweetness that complements the tartness from the lemon juice and the pleasing sweet and sour of the grapefruit.

How to Make this Elderflower Cocktail

Simply combine all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice.

 

Shake and strain into a cocktail coupe and garnish with a sprig of rosemary and a slice of grapefruit.

Tips & Tricks

• Garnish – you can use a rosemary sprig and a slice of grapefruit if you want in this elderflower cocktail. Or, lemon wedges, edible flowers or other fresh herbs would work well.
• Glassware – we served these delicious cocktails up (without ice) in a cocktail coupe.
• Fizz Cocktail – feel free to serve this as a fizz cocktail by topping with some tonic water, dry champagne or club soda after shaking and pouring into coupe or cocktail glass.
• Grapefruit Cocktails – if you want some more tasty grapefruit cocktails try any of these Strawberry Paloma, Honey Bourbon Pear Cider, Hibiscus Salty Dog, the Shipwreck or Rambler’s Ruby!

 

Cheers!

 

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Like this recipe? Try these below, too!

Rosemary Grapefruit Moscow Mule

 

The Pink Pear Cocktail

Other Gin & Rosemary Cocktails

• Rosemary Gin Grapefruit Cocktail – Cooking Bride
• Ginger, Cardamom and Rosemary Cocktail – Jessi’s Kitchen
• Rosemary Honey Gin Rickey – Bren Did
• Pomegranate Rosemary Spritzer – Culinary Compass

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