Drinking French with David Lebovitz

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If you had to choose the perfect companion for a year of quarantine, you could certainly do worse than David Lebovitz. The blogger/author/bon vivant is not only a master pastry chef who came up at Chez Panisse, he’s a pro at translating his recipes for the home kitchen—recipes for pastries as well as ice cream and French bistro cuisine—all conceived from his tiny kitchen in Paris. But since we can’t have David cooking for us while we’re stuck at home, the next best thing would definitely be to have his books. In fact, his book The Sweet Life in Paris recently kept me company while I waited in a three-hour covid test line—with his passion for food and a humorous penchant for details, my mind was happily on the streets of Paris while my body waited (not so happily) in Burbank. 

His latest book is Drinking French, an homage to the French drink culture, featuring recipes that run the gamut from apéritifs to chocolate chaud, all from his witty, enthusiastic, and sometimes irreverent point of view. We’re thrilled to have partnered with him to put together a drink-and-book mega pack that’ll have you feeling like you’re living your own dream in Paris. These fantastic packs just landed, and they include a signed copy of his book as well as ingredients for some of his favorite tipples. So, while you may not be able to add the real David Lebovitz to your quarantine bubble, you can certainly add his recipes to your repertoire and toast him merrily over a few delicious drinks.

Below is a brief interview with David, who, being a blogger by trade, has supplied us with lovely, descriptive stories about his inspirations and favorite indulgences.

KS: Can you talk a bit about what’s in the Drinking French kit & why?
DL: I wanted the box to introduce people to French apéritifs and spirits, and include something they may not be familiar with, but would enjoy discovering very much. People hear a lot about cognac, but it can seem aloof or like something reserved for luxurious sipping. But it makes a wonderful cocktail, such as the French Manhattan in Drinking French, and, Pineau des Charentes, made in the same region, blends cognac and grape juice and is one of my very favorite apéritifs, served over a cube of ice. I am certain that once people try it, they’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

I fell in love with Chartreuse decades ago when I was a pastry chef, pairing green Chartreuse with chocolate (I’ve been known to sneak a shot of it into my mug of hot chocolate), but I find the yellow Chartreuse an amazing cocktail ingredient in drinks such as the Yellow Cocktail, from Cravan cocktail bar in Paris, that's included in Drinking French. Byrrh is an outlier for sure. It was once the most popular apéritif in the world, selling 30 million bottles a year, and was recently resurrected by the company in France. It’s a delightful, red wine–based apéritif, juicy and full of berry flavors tempered with quinine. It’s wonderful on its own over ice, or mixed with tonic water and crème de cassis (or mezcal!). It can also be used in place of sweet vermouth in a Manhattan. I hope people enjoy them all.

KS: What inspired you to pivot your focus from food to drink?
DL: Years ago, back in San Francisco, maybe in the 90s?...when I was working at Chez Panisse, someone in the kitchen suggested we have martinis after our shift. So gin was brought in, and we raided the pastry liquor cabinet for the vermouth. We put on some lounge music and started drinking martinis after work. That coincided with the cocktail renaissance that was taking place elsewhere in America, and, on our days off, we’d go to Bix in San Francisco, known for their especially ice-cold martinis. 

Fast forward to a few decades later, I was at a cocktail bar in Paris and was watching a bartender make a drink. As he added different ingredients, he shook them all up and poured them into a glass. When I tasted it, I realized that he was doing the exact same thing that I do as a baker: building something with different ingredients to create something totally different, but with each flavor still present in the drink (or dessert). It’s the same concept as making a chocolate cake or brownies; When you take a bite, you taste the chocolate, the butter, the vanilla, and the sugar. 

Living in Paris, I write a lot about French culture through the lens of food. But no one’s written a guide to the various French spirits, apéritifs, beers, liqueurs, café drinks, infusions, crèmes, eaux-de-vie, distillations, etc—explaining them, and talking about them in terms of their importance to the French. It’s hard to underestimate how important drinking is to the French. When we had the most recent lockdown, which began last month, the biggest outcry was over the closing of cafés, the place where French people typically gather with friends over drinks. 

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KS: Can you talk a bit about French cocktail culture? It’s been awhile since I’ve been to France, but I gather that there’s more interest in the craft cocktail (like the American cocktail scene) than there used to be, where wine and aperitifs/digestifs have long reigned supreme.
DL: France has had a very long cocktail culture and some historians suggest the cocktail, or at least the concept, was invented in France. (One theory goes that the tail feather of a rooster was used to stir the drinks, hence a coq-tail.) When prohibition hit, Americans flocked to France by boat to drink, with the on-board bars opening almost as soon as the boats left the docks. 

Today France is known for its spirits and apéritifs, and, when the craft cocktail movement ramped up in America, American bartenders started discovering spirits like Suze and Armagnac, using them in cocktails. Some young French people took the same cues and opened bars in Paris, which have exploded in popularity in the last few years and many are considered the best in the world. 

KS: What makes a drink uniquely French?
DL: Even before globalization, it can be hard to assign provenance to things. For example, the Boulevardier is considered a classic French cocktail, but invented by an American, and uses red bitter apéritif, such as Campari, sweet vermouth, and bourbon or rye whisky. Bourbon, of course, is American. And Campari comes from Italy. But I feel the drink is uniquely French due to where it was created and the circumstances surrounding it. Other classic cocktails, like the Bloody Mary and the Sidecar, were invented (or, have roots) in France, so when I was deciding which cocktails to put in the book, I looked at two things: One was if they had a strong connection to some aspect of French culture, and two, if they used a uniquely French spirit, such as Chartreuse, Suze, Byrrh, or pastis.  

KS: Drinks are such a social part of life, but your books always help bring your subjects to the home kitchen. I know the year has been weird, but this book can help put a little bit of French café culture in our own homes, which seems like a pretty great way to spend a lockdown winter. What are your favorite winter drinks at home?
DL: I know people have had a hard time this year because travel has been off the table. But I’ve found that people are strongly connected to Paris in profound ways, so having some French apéritifs at home can make you feel as if you’re in a French café. The first chapter in Drinking French is all about café drinks, including three kinds of hot chocolate and fresh herb infusions, so no matter where people are—or what time of the day it is—people can have a taste of France at home.

My favorite winter drinks are the Salted Butter Caramel Hot Chocolate and Hot Mulled wine, depending on the time of day! 

KS: Do you miss anything in particular from the Bay Area? (I’m in LA, but a lot of our readers are in the Bay!) 
DL: I miss the prolific, and fascinating, citrus in the winter. In Paris, we do get oranges, grapefruits and tangerines, but California has a kaleidoscope of citrus in all colors and flavors, from sweet, perfumed Meyer lemons to Oro Blanco grapefruits, as well as curiosities like madarinquats (a cross between a mandarine and kumquat) and rangpur limes, which are bright orange rather than green. I miss Mexican food although that’s changed in recent years and you can now get respectable tacos in Paris when you get a craving, as well as a great margarita. 

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Now available! The Drinking French Box 

Drinking French, with signed bookplate
Raymond Ragnaud Pineau des Charentes (750m)
Byrrh (750m)
Yellow Chartreuse (375m)
Bache Gabrielson "Tre Kors" Cognac (750m)

- Kate Soto