The non-alcoholic French 75

The French 75 is gin, lemon juice and sugar, shaken with ice and topped with Champagne. It's essentially a gin sour with sparkling wine in place of soda, or a Tom Collins dressed up for a party. It's served in a flute or coupe, usually with a lemon twist.

Here's what each part does, and what the non-alcoholic swap has to manage:

• Gin: botanical backbone. Juniper and citrus give the drink structure. It's a smaller pour than in most gin drinks, so the gin alternative doesn't need to carry the drink alone, but it does need to be distinct enough to taste under the wine.
• Lemon: brightness. Fresh juice, always. It's what makes the drink sharp.
• Sugar: balance. A French 75 isn't a sweet cocktail. Use less syrup than a sour, and cut it further if your sparkling wine has any sweetness.
• Sparkling wine: acidity, bubbles and dryness. This is the most important swap. It should be dry, high in acid, and ideally have some toasty or bready depth, like Champagne.

The rule we follow: the drier the sparkling wine, the more syrup you can use. With a bone-dry sparkler, a quarter-ounce of syrup is right. With a slightly sweeter one, skip the syrup altogether.

If you've been looking for a non alcoholic French 75 can, they do exist: Lyre's sells a canned version alongside its French 75 recipe. It isn't in our catalogue yet, so we can't compare it with the bottles below. Until it is, the quickest route is a bottle of dry sparkling wine you'd happily drink on its own, a lemon and a little syrup. Even without a gin alternative, a flute of Bolle Blanc de Blancs with a quarter-ounce of lemon and a lemon twist gets you most of the way there.

A homemade French 75 is a two-bottle build: a gin alternative and a sparkling wine.

The sparkling wine

This matters most, so it comes first. The best non-alcoholic sparkling wine for a French 75 is dry, acidic and has a fine bubble.

• French Bloom Le Blanc is our first pick. It's organic Chardonnay from the South of France, made sparkling and alcohol-free, with orchard fruit, a little spice, and enough acidity to taste dry. It's pitched as a Champagne stand-in for exactly this kind of drink, and it has the smooth body to carry a cocktail.
• Bolle Blanc de Blancs is our pick for the lavender version. It's Chardonnay and Silvaner, fermented again after the alcohol comes out, which gives it natural bubbles and a toasty, bready edge that's close to Champagne. It's genuinely dry, with very little sugar.
• Missing Thorn Sparkling White Riesling is a Napa sparkling Riesling with high acidity and a long, dry finish: tart citrus, green pear and melon. It makes a sharper, zingier French 75.
• Giesen 0% Sparkling Brut is crisp and dry with pear, grapefruit and lemon. It's a good value option, and one of the easier ones to find.
• Oddbird Blanc de Blancs is aged before the alcohol comes out, so it keeps its toasty depth. It's the richest of the bunch.
• Noughty Sparkling Chardonnay is bone-dry, with crisp green apple. Useful if you find other options too fruity.

A few to be careful with. Freixenet 0.0 Sparkling White has a noticeably sweet finish, and Mionetto Alcohol-Removed Sparkling is a little sweet too. Both are fine in a mimosa, but if you use them in a French 75, drop the syrup entirely.

The gin

The best non alcoholic gin for a French 75 is clean, citrusy and juniper-led, so it reads as gin under the wine.

• Lyre's Dry London Spirit is our pick for the classic. It's juniper-forward with citrus, coriander and a dry finish, which is exactly the London dry profile a French 75 is built around. It's a little soft on its own, but in a French 75 that's a strength: it sits under the wine rather than fighting it.
• Free Spirits The Spirit of Gin is modelled on a dry Plymouth-style gin: juniper, citrus, coriander and cardamom. It makes a slightly fuller French 75, and it's a good choice with the leaner, sharper sparklers like Missing Thorn.
• Fluere Botanical Blend is coriander seed and lime peel on the nose, with lavender and juniper beneath. That lavender note makes it our pick for the lavender French 75.
• Monday Zero Alcohol Gin is juniper and lemon with a warming tingle. It makes a bolder, warmer French 75.
• Seedlip Grove 42, with its three oranges, lemongrass and ginger, makes a citrus-forward "75" that's lovely with a drier sparkler. It won't taste like gin, but it tastes great.

Gin or cognac?

Some older French 75 recipes use cognac instead of gin, and in parts of New Orleans that's still the default. There's no non-alcoholic brandy in our catalogue. The closest workaround is a small pour of Lyre's American Malt, a bourbon alternative with vanilla, caramel and oak. Use half an ounce in place of the gin for a rounder, richer drink, and pair it with a toastier sparkler like Oddbird.

Our house French 75 is on the dry side: an ounce of gin alternative, half an ounce of lemon and only a quarter-ounce of syrup, topped with French Bloom.

If you're using a sweeter sparkling wine, drop the syrup. If you like it sweeter, go up to half an ounce. Either way, chill the flute and the wine well; warm sparkling wine goes flat fast.

The lavender French 75 mocktail is one of the most popular variations, and it's a good one: floral, pale purple, and still dry if you choose the wine carefully. Make your own lavender syrup from dried culinary lavender. It's easy, and it keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge. We pair it with Fluere Botanical Blend, whose lavender and juniper tie the syrup to the gin.

The one risk is too much lavender, which tips quickly into soap. Start at half an ounce of syrup, taste, and adjust.

Swap the white sparkler for French Bloom Le Rosé, a pale pink alcohol-free sparkler with sharp acidity and fine bubbles, dry rather than sweet. It makes a slightly fruitier, very pretty version. Use Lyre's and a lemon twist, or a strawberry for a garnish.

The French 75 is a party drink, and it batches well if you keep the bubbles separate until the last moment.

• Batch the base. Mix the gin alternative, lemon and syrup in a bottle or jug at the same ratio as the recipe: two parts gin alternative, one part lemon, half a part syrup. Chill it for at least an hour. Fresh lemon holds up for a few hours in the fridge.
• Keep the wine cold. Put the sparkling wine on ice, not just in the fridge. One 750 ml bottle tops about eight drinks.
• Build in the glass. Pour an ounce and three-quarters of the chilled base into each flute, then top with wine. Skipping the shake loses a little dilution, so add a splash of cold water to the batch (about 20% of its volume) to make up for it.
• Twist to order. Cut the lemon twists ahead, but express them over each drink as you serve it.

Pallini Limonzero is a zero-proof limoncello made from Amalfi Coast lemons: sweet and bright. Use half an ounce of it in place of the lemon juice and syrup, shake with an ounce of Lyre's, and top with a dry sparkler. It's sweeter and sunnier than the classic, so pair it with the driest wine you have, like Bolle or Noughty.

Here's how the sparkling wines and gins we'd use for a French 75 compare. The table pulls live ratings from around the web; see each bottle's page for sources.

• Gin Fizz. Swap the sparkling wine for soda, and add egg white if you like foam. Same bones, more casual.
• Mimosa. Sparkling wine and orange juice. For mimosas, the slightly sweeter sparklers work well.
• Sparkling. Our full guide to the best non-alcoholic sparkling wines, if you're choosing a bottle for a toast.
• Sbagliato. Bitter, vermouth and sparkling wine, for when you want your bubbles bittersweet.

The French 75 is a brunch and celebration staple, and many bars with a zero-proof list will make one. Some places worth the trip: