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. In 1995 Adam Seger, working at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, said he had 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. In October 2016 Robert Simonson reported in his New York Times drinks column that Seger had invented it, recipe and history 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 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. The widely printed recipe uses Cointreau, and it 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. Clove and a dark, woody spice that carries through the bubbles.
7 dashes
Seven dashes, at about 35% ABV. Anise and red cherry, and most of the faint pink the champagne takes on.
90ml
Brut and well chilled, at about 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
The recipe usually printed is 1oz of bourbon, ½oz of Cointreau and seven dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s, topped with champagne. 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
Adam Seger’s account ran like this: going through old menus at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, he had found a house cocktail from about 1917 that Prohibition had buried. Gary and Mardee Regan printed the drink in 1997, and Ted Haigh in 2009, with the story attached.
In October 2016 Robert Simonson’s drinks column in the New York Times reported that Seger had made up both the recipe and the history.
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 clove and weight; Peychaud’s adds anise, cherry 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 usually printed, 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)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?
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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 ‘75’ of 1922 was calvados, gin, grenadine and absinthe. The gin, lemon, sugar and champagne recipe appears under the name French 75 in Here’s How, by Judge Jr., 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. Ernest Hemingway gave the recipe to So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a 1935 book of cocktails contributed by writers, and named it after his 1932 book on bullfighting. His instructions: 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
An Old Fashioned is 45ml of bourbon, one sugar cube, two dashes of Angostura bitters and a few dashes of water. 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. Those are the IBA’s ingredients, which allow rye in place of bourbon. Only the sugar and bitters are muddled: no orange flesh, no cherry. The recipe predates the name. When a newspaper in Hudson, New York, defined the cocktail in 1806, it described spirits, sugar, water and bitters, a bittered sling. The name came later in the century, as bartenders added liqueurs to the format and drinkers who wanted it plain are said to have asked for one made the old-fashioned way.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026