Cocktail Recipe: The Cambridge Public House’s “Final Credits”
Strawberries and spice and everything nice, from one of the world's best bars.
This week, The World’s 50 Best Bars got its annual update, and The Cambridge Public House in Paris jumped up in the rankings from #38 to #191. I had a couple drinks there back in June, with my friends Jason and Liane. Jason had arrived in Paris the week before and had been there on his own. He loved it so much he went back the next day. On a balmy Saturday evening, we had some time in between our early and late dinners2, and The Cambridge happened to be in between the two restaurants. Sitting on their sidewalk-facing patio, it was easy to see why Jason was down to go to the same bar three times in one trip: the drinks were exquisite, the vibes friendly, and we didn’t have to wait for a table.
Of the handful of cocktails we ordered, the Final Credits was our unanimous favorite. Built around calvados (apple brandy), rye, and a strawberry shrub, it had a mildly acidic flavor with a pleasant bite thanks to a splash of pasilla chile spirit and soda water. It was delightful and fresh. (No surprise that the French word for strawberry, fraise, literally sounds fresh.) I asked the server if they’d be willing to share the recipe for this drink, and one of the bartenders popped out to chat. After assuring him that I would actually try this at home, he not only shared the overall specs for the cocktail, but gave me a detailed breakdown of how to make every constituent ingredient. It was far above and beyond what I expected.
I didn’t catch the name of le barman, but I’m grateful to him for spilling the beans on one of their award-winning cocktails. They cycle out the menu frequently, so the Final Credits is probably no longer available at The Cambridge. We’ll always have Paris, but we can also give this drink a post-credits life by making it at home!
Here’s the cocktail recipe exactly as it was given to me, followed by some of my personal notes on re-creating it.
The “Final Credits,” Version Originale
Created by The Cambridge Public House. Printed with permission of the bar; any errors are my fault. Merci beaucoup!
Stir the below with ice
5 ml Simple Syrup 1:1
10 ml Verjus
25 ml Strawberry Shrub
30 ml Spirits Mix
Strain into a Collins glass stacked with ice cubes (or one long cube)
Pour soda water just below the top of the ice, stir to incorporate
Garnish with a marinated strawberry, placed on top of the ice cube.
Strawberry Shrub: Combine 500ml vinegar cider and 500g strawberries sliced in half and let soak for 24 hours in the fridge. Strain into a pot and add 500g sugar. Heat to dissolve (don't blend). (This makes enough shrub for roughly 25 drinks; scale up or down as needed.)
Spirits Mix: a 2:1:0.5 ratio of Calvados:Whistlepig Rye:Empirical Ayuuk
Marinated Strawberry (for garnish): marinate halved strawberries in a 1:1 blend of simple syrup and soy sauce. (Because I am cheap/waste-avoidant, I marinated the vinegar-steeped strawberries, which changes the flavor but also saves you a few bucks.)
The “Final Credits,” Batched Version
I don’t know about you, but my jiggers are in ounces, not milliliters. Given the exact amounts between the ingredients (5 ml is the rough equivalent of a barspoon), this is a cocktail that is much more easily made as a giant batch and poured when needed. Otherwise, the only other change I made was using the cheaper and more readily available Rittenhouse instead of Whistlepig.
Legendary Pacific Northwest bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler created a super nifty web app to easily scale up cocktails. Naturally, it’s called the Batch Calculator, and it’s already become invaluable to both amateur and professional cocktail makers.
To make ten servings of the Final Credits, which will fill a 750 ml bottle, combine the below.
1.79 oz/52.94 ml Simple Syrup 1:1
3.57 oz/105.58 ml Verjus
8.93 oz/264.09 ml Strawberry Shrub
6.11 oz/180.69 ml Calvados (I used this Christian Drouin calvados)
3.07 oz/90.79 ml Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey
1.54 oz/45.54 ml Empirical Ayuuk
The scaling and unit conversions give you some insane decimals. In practice, I rounded a little bit. I don’t really think this will make a difference, but I don’t run one of the world’s best bars so maybe don’t trust me here.
This is what I did, more or less:
1.75 oz ml Simple Syrup 1:1
3.5 oz Verjus
9 oz Strawberry Shrub
6 oz Calvados
3 oz Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey
1.5 oz Empirical Ayuuk
Store the bottle in the fridge.
To serve:
Pour 2.5 oz of the cocktail into a Collins glass stacked with ice cubes (or one long cube) or a rocks glass with one large cube (I don’t have a Collins glass lol)
Pour soda water, just below the top of the ice, stir to incorporate
Play around with how much soda you add and see what you like. I prefer a very quick pour, others want a bit more fizzy water.
Garnish with a marinated strawberry on top of the ice cube
(This cocktail recipe is available in PDF format.)
I had Jason and Liane try out my version of the Final Credits, and to them it pretty much tasted just like we had it back in Paris! I served it at a party I hosted and it was such a hit that we made two additional batches during that night.
Where to Buy the Harder to Find Ingredients
This is mostly NYC specific. There are two parts of this drink that are kinda hard to find, at least in the US. Verjus is a juice made from unripe grapes. It’s not widely consumed here, but it can be found at Kalustyan’s, Spirited Away, or Amazon. Empirical Ayuuk is an unclassifiable spirit made from Oaxacan pasilla chiles; a bottle retails for $85 and can be hard to find locally, but you can purchase it online directly from the producer. I was lucky that a friend had a bottle sitting around and let me “borrow” it. One serving of the Final Credits costs me about $3 (your cost will vary!).
This all seems kind of intimidating if you don’t usually make cocktails at home, but I think this one is worth the effort. And it’s really not hard, especially when you batch it.
Other Good Bars in Paris
During my weekend in Paris, I also went to Bar Nouveau (also on that 50 Best list), which I loved, and Little Red Door, which I did not. On prior trips I also liked Lavomatic and Le Syndicat. But usually, when I’m in France… je bois du vin.
I don’t care for any of these “50 Best” lists and can only speak with authority on the New York selections: Double Chicken Please, Overstory, and Martiny’s are all very fine establishments. (I am not a fan of Superbueno. The vodka y soda is amazing, everything else fails to impress.) But these are not bars where one could feasibly become a regular. Most of the clientele are tourists, which is the primary audience for these 50 Best lists anyways. The actual best bars in New York would never be on this list, but I’ve got a different criteria than San Pellegrino.
First dinner was at Early June; second dinner at Le Servan. Both are terrific.