Deauville

An elegant French cocktail named for the ritzy Normandy resort town, balancing calvados and brandy with citrus.

The Deauville cocktail is a 1920s creation named for one of the most glamorous resort destinations in Belle Époque and Jazz Age Europe. Deauville, situated on the Normandy coast of France where the Seine empties into the English Channel, developed as a fashionable seaside resort from the 1860s onward under the patronage of the Duc de Morny — Napoleon III's half-brother — who saw in the Norman coast a potential rival to the established English seaside resorts. By the early 20th century, Deauville had become famous for its horse racing at the Hippodrome de Deauville La Touques, its casino, its plank boardwalk called Les Planches, and its concentration of wealthy French, British, and American vacationers during the August season. The cocktail's use of equal parts Calvados and cognac reflects the drink's Normandy setting — Calvados, the apple brandy produced in the Norman orchards under AOC rules formalized in 1942, is the region's defining spirit. Combining the two brandies with triple sec and lemon juice produces a sophisticated sour of genuine depth, the apple character of the Calvados and the grape character of the cognac creating a multi-layered brandy foundation. Harry Craddock published the recipe in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), cementing the drink's place in the pre-Prohibition cocktail canon.