Seelbach
A Seelbach is 30ml of bourbon, 15ml of orange curaçao and seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters, stirred with ice, strained into a chilled flute and topped with 90ml of cold champagne, with an orange twist. About 3.3 UK units. Its history is a confession. Difford’s Guide, a secondary source, says that in 1995 Adam Seger, who had taken charge of beverage operations at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, claimed to have found the hotel’s pre-Prohibition house cocktail, from about 1917, in old menus. Cocktail books by Gary and Mardee Regan in 1997 and Ted Haigh in 2009 repeated the story. Difford’s has Robert Simonson debunking it in his New York Times drinks column, and the Times piece, as Sirvo reprinted it on 7 November 2016, has Seger saying he made up the drink and the story together. The drink kept its place after the story fell. Fourteen dashes of bitters is the idea that carries it: they spice the bourbon and turn the champagne a faint pink.
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Orange twist
Ingredients
30ml
A bourbon at our working range of 40 to 45% ABV with plenty of vanilla. Nothing dilutes it after the stir, so a hot, high-strength bottle reads harsh against the champagne.
15ml
At around 40% ABV, our working figure. Tasting Table prints Cointreau, and in our experience curaçao works just as well; either way the orange has to be dry enough not to sweeten the flute.
7 dashes
Seven dashes, at 44.7% ABV on DrinkSupermarket’s listing. Herbs, fruits and spices, as Angostura’s own page describes its bouquet, carried through the bubbles.
7 dashes
Seven dashes, at 35% ABV on Difford’s Guide’s listing. Difford’s gives it a nose of cherry with liquorice and aniseed, and it supplies most of the faint pink the champagne takes on.
90ml
Brut and well chilled, at our working figure of 12% ABV. A dry crémant or another traditional-method sparkling wine does the same job; a sweet prosecco pushes the drink towards dessert.
Instructions
Chill a champagne flute of about 200ml.
Add the bourbon, orange curaçao and both bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 20 to 30 seconds.
Strain into the chilled flute.
Top slowly with 90ml of cold champagne, pausing to let the foam settle.
Express an orange twist over the surface and drop it in.
Our version
Tasting Table prints 1oz of bourbon, ½oz of Cointreau and seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s, topped with champagne; Difford’s Guide prints two dashes of each. Ours keeps the bourbon and the bitters, uses orange curaçao in place of the Cointreau and sets the champagne at 90ml.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Count the bitters. Seven dashes of each is a lot, and it is the point: halve them and you have a pleasant bourbon champagne cocktail with nothing much to say. Keep both bottles in play. Peychaud’s brings anise, cherry and most of the pink; Angostura brings clove and weight. Fourteen dashes of either one alone tips the drink hard in one direction. Pour the champagne in a thin stream against the inside of the flute, and pause halfway to let the foam settle. A fast pour runs over the rim and takes part of the drink with it.
Behind the Seelbach
Flavour Profile
A Story Made Up in 1995
Difford’s Guide gives Adam Seger’s account: going through old menus at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, he had found a house cocktail from about 1917 that Prohibition had buried. Difford’s says Gary and Mardee Regan printed the drink in 1997, and Ted Haigh in 2009, with the story attached. The New York Times piece, as Sirvo reprints it, says the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote the drink up first, and that the story Seger told was of a couple from New Orleans honeymooning at the hotel in 1912.
Difford’s Guide says Robert Simonson debunked the story in his New York Times drinks column. The Times piece, as Sirvo reprints it on 7 November 2016, has Seger, who left the hotel in 2001, saying he made up both the drink and the story.
The Fourteen Dashes
Most drinks take bitters a dash or two at a time, as seasoning. At seven dashes of each, about 11ml in all, they become an ingredient. Angostura adds gentian, spice and weight; Peychaud’s adds cherry, aniseed and colour. Between them they turn bourbon and champagne into something spiced and faintly pink.
Bourbon and Bubbles
Nothing waters the bourbon down once the stir is done, so its strength shows. A bottle at 40 to 45% ABV with soft vanilla sits under the champagne; a cask-strength one pokes through it.
Champagne is the classic top, but any dry traditional-method sparkling wine does the job. Keep it cold and pour it slowly.
The Printed Recipe and Ours
The Seelbach as Tasting Table prints it, and ours
Bourbon
- Usually printed
- 1oz (about 30ml)
- Ours
- 30ml
Orange liqueur
- Usually printed
- ½oz Cointreau (about 15ml)
- Ours
- 15ml orange curaçao
Bitters
- Usually printed
- Seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s
- Ours
- The same
Sparkling wine
- Usually printed
- Champagne to top
- Ours
- 90ml champagne
Method
- Usually printed
- Stirred, strained into a flute, topped
- Ours
- Stirred 20 to 30 seconds, strained into a chilled flute, topped slowly
Garnish
- Usually printed
- Orange twist
- Ours
- Orange twist
UK units
- Usually printed
- Varies with the top
- Ours
- About 3.3
| Element | Usually printed | Ours |
|---|---|---|
| Bourbon | 1oz (about 30ml) | 30ml |
| Orange liqueur | ½oz Cointreau (about 15ml) | 15ml orange curaçao |
| Bitters | Seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s | The same |
| Sparkling wine | Champagne to top | 90ml champagne |
| Method | Stirred, strained into a flute, topped | Stirred 20 to 30 seconds, strained into a chilled flute, topped slowly |
| Garnish | Orange twist | Orange twist |
| UK units | Varies with the top | About 3.3 |
How to Serve It
In a chilled flute, as the first drink of an evening that calls for champagne, with the orange twist expressed over the top. Its oil reaches you first, ahead of fourteen dashes of spice.
For bourbon and bitters without the bubbles, the Old Fashioned; for gin, lemon and champagne, the French 75; for absinthe and champagne, Death in the Afternoon.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Whiskey (Bourbon)Under the US standard 27 CFR 5.143, bourbon is an American whiskey whose mash is at least 51% corn, matured in fresh charred oak barrels and bottled at 40% ABV or higher, the figure our recipes use. The fresh charred wood gives it its vanilla, caramel and colour, and the corn gives a rounder, sweeter spirit than rye. It is the base of 26 of our recipes, more than any other whiskey.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Seelbach?
Is the Seelbach a real pre-Prohibition cocktail?
Why so many dashes of bitters?
Can I use just one kind of bitters?
Do I need real champagne?
Cointreau or orange curaçao?
How strong is a Seelbach?
Sources.
Checked between 18 October and 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Seelbach Cocktail” (secondary source: created by Adam Seger in 1995; the invented pre-Prohibition story of about 1917; Regan 1997 and Haigh 2009; debunked by Robert Simonson in the New York Times; two dashes of each bitters).
- Sirvo (reprint of The New York Times), “That Historic Cocktail Turns Out to Be a Fake” (reprint dated 7 November 2016: Seger came clean that he concocted the drink and the story; the 1912 honeymoon tale; the Courier-Journal; Regan 1997; Haigh).
- Tasting Table, “The Seelbach Cocktail Recipe” (1oz bourbon, ½oz Cointreau, seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s, champagne; orange twist).
- Difford’s Guide, “Peychaud’s Aromatic Cocktail Bitters” (listing: 35% alc./vol.; cherry with liquorice, aniseed, celery and orange zest).
- DrinkSupermarket, “Angostura Aromatic Bitters 200ml” (retailer listing: 44.7% ABV).
- House of Angostura, “Aromatic Bitters” (producer’s own page: nose “Aromatic Bouquet of herbs, fruits and spices”).
- Cointreau, “Nutritional information” (producer’s page: Cointreau l’Unique contains 40% of alcohol per volume).
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French 75
A French 75 is 30ml of London Dry gin, 15ml of fresh lemon juice and 15ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds, double strained into a chilled flute and topped with 60ml of cold brut champagne, with a lemon twist. About 1.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. The name is the French army’s 75mm field gun of the First World War. The drink is usually credited to Harry MacElhone and Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, often with the date 1915, but the printed record starts later. MacElhone’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, published at the end of 1922 according to the Oxford Companion, has a ‘75’ of calvados, gin, grenadine and absinthe, as the Internet Archive’s scan of its second impression shows. The Companion, in an entry by David Wondrich, finds the gin, lemon, sugar and champagne formula and the French 75 name together first in Here’s How, a book put out by a New York humour magazine, in 1927. Built that way, it is a Tom Collins with champagne in place of soda: a short gin sour that the wine lengthens and lifts.
Death in the Afternoon
Death in the Afternoon is 30ml absinthe in a cold flute, with about 90ml of very cold Champagne poured in slowly until the drink turns cloudy. No garnish and no ice. About 3.1 UK units, two-thirds of it from the absinthe. The recipe was published in the Internet Archive’s scan of So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a cocktail book of 1935 with contributions from famous authors, and the drink shares its name with Hemingway’s 1932 book on bullfighting. His instructions, as the book prints them: pour one jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass, add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness, and drink three to five of these slowly. That milkiness is the louche, anise oils falling out of solution as the wine thins the spirit, and it is your cue to stop pouring.
Old Fashioned
The IBA’s Old Fashioned is 45ml of bourbon or rye whiskey, one sugar cube, a few dashes of Angostura bitters and a few dashes of water; we use bourbon and two dashes. The sugar and bitters are muddled in a rocks glass until the cube dissolves, then ice goes in, the bourbon goes over it and the drink is stirred for 15 to 20 seconds. Orange peel is expressed over the top. About 1.9 UK units. Only the sugar and bitters are muddled: no orange flesh, no cherry. The recipe predates the name. The Oxford Companion says that when a newspaper in Hudson, New York, defined the cocktail in 1806, it described “spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters”. The name came later in the century: the Companion has people ordering Old-Fashioneds in Chicago in 1880, as bartenders added liqueurs to the format and drinkers who wanted it plain asked for one made the old-fashioned way.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026