How to Make a Seelbach, a Bourbon and Champagne Cocktail With a Wild Origin Story

In the cocktail universe, the Seelbach is singular. It is in a class by itself.

We don’t mean that in a good way. It’s not singular in the way it looks (like a red French 75) or the way it tastes (like a bourbon Champagne Cocktail) but in its identity, the origin story for which it has received so much of its attention, which is singular because it is—to an extent that is unique in the cocktail world—total and complete horseshit.

The story goes like this: The Seelbach is a hotel in Louisville, opened in 1905 by Bavarian immigrant brothers Otto and Louis Seelbach, who had a mind to build a grand, European-style hotel in the heart of Kentucky. It truly was grand, with imported marble, barrel-vaulted tile ceilings, and an Old Seelbach Bar, regal with mahogany and brass. The hotel was the obvious choice for visiting presidents and dignitaries, as well as a favorite of cultural icons like Al Capone and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In the mid-1990s, a bartender named Adam Grant had recently started at Old Seelbach Bar, and happened upon the story for the cocktail on the dusty, pre-prohibition menus he uncovered in the back: Apparently, in 1912, a visiting couple was honeymooning in the hotel and found their way to the bar, wherein the groom ordered a Manhattan for himself and a Champagne Cocktail for the wife. The bartender accidentally poured Champagne into the Manhattan, and realizing his clumsy mistake, set it aside. He later realized that there was something auspicious in the accident, and from it came the Seelbach cocktail, made of an ounce of bourbon, a half ounce of orange liqueur, and a heavy dose (7 dashes each) of both Peychaud’s and Angostura Bitters, topped with Champagne. 

Grant, discovering all this in 1995, reintroduces the Seelbach as the signature cocktail of his historic bar. It is soon picked up by a local newspaper and then gets printed in the influential book New Classic Cocktails by Gary Regan in 1997, then again in the even-more-influential book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh in 2004. By the time I learned about it in the early 2010s, it was canon, a classic cocktail invented at a famous hotel bar, no different than the Vieux Carré from the Hotel Monteleone or the Singapore Sling from the Raffles. I personally was in Louisville in 2012 and went to the Seelbach Hotel, to take the opportunity to have a Seelbach Cocktail there, and to raise a glass in communion to the distant past. 

Perhaps you see where this is going. In 2016, Grant admitted to cocktail writer Robert Simonson that he made the whole thing up. The story is a fabrication from beginning to end, utterly and completely false. It’s our fault, in a way: His origin story is comically unrealistic, but no less so than that of the Negroni Sbagliato or the Harvey Wallbanger or any other such tales that the bar world seems to uncritically accept. It’s hard to begrudge Grant his white lie, even if it did spiral wildly out of control. “I felt the hotel needed a signature cocktail,” he’d later confess. “How could you have a place that F. Scott Fitzgerald hung out in that doesn’t have a damn cocktail?”

How indeed. Amusingly, the biggest problem with the Seelbach isn’t its inauthenticity; the problem is that it sucks. Most cocktails in the canon have earned their way there by virtue of their crowd-pleasing quality, but the Seelbach snuck in a back door: The hotel really is historic and impressive, and that bar really does feel like it would have a signature drink, and Grant’s confabulation came at the perfect time, when appetites for historic cocktails were surging and the fact-checking internet was still in its infancy. 

That said, any cocktail can be good, it just depends on how far you’re willing to drift from the original recipe, and in the case of the Seelbach, you don’t even need to drift that far. True, the recipe as written is weird and unbalanced, but all you need to do is reduce the heat a touch and make sure you chill the ingredients first, and the drink easily finds a previously unfilled niche. The heavy spice from the bitters help unite the bourbon and sparkling wine, the cinnamon notes complement the Cointreau’s zesty orange, and the fairly robust bitterness shading in the finish, giving you a Champagne cocktail that’s more on the amaro spectrum than it is on the French 75 one. Is it a grand, old cocktail from the turn of the century? It is not. But it might be worth our attention all the same. 

Seelbach

Add bourbon, Cointreau, and bitters to a mixing glass with ice, and stir briskly for 15-20 seconds to chill. Strain the mixture either into a flute or into a tall glass with ice, and top with sparkling wine. Garnish with an orange peel.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Ratios: The original 1 oz. bourbon and 0.5 oz. Cointreau is way too dry. At a half ounce each it was a little thin, but I think keeping the backbone of the bourbon but increasing the Cointreau was the perfect middle ground, keeping the proof where it is but allowing a touch more richness to match the considerable heat and bitters’ spice.

Preparation: Many recipes call for just pouring room temperature bourbon and Cointreau into a glass of Champagne, which is the worst possible way to make this drink. You need to chill and dilute the spirits if we’re even going to begin hoping for something good. 

Bourbon: The bitters are so loud that it doesn’t so much matter what kind of bourbon you use. I personally thought the recipe synergized the best when you used a sweeter or milder bourbon (like Buffalo Trace or Maker’s Mark, respectively) as opposed to a spicier one, but the difference was so mild, I’d say don’t worry too much about it. 

Cointreau: Most recipes you find call for Cointreau by name, and that’s good advice: You want a clean, dry, neutral-spirit-based orange liqueur here, and Cointreau is the gold standard. Brandy-based orange liqueurs like Grand Marnier and Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao are delicious, but this drink is already so heavy it can barely get off the ground, and they make it worse. Stick with Cointreau.

Oh, and if all you have is a generic looking “triple sec” that’s crusty around the neck and is less than 30 percent alcohol, don’t even bother making this drink. You might be able to make tasty drinks with that bottle (Margaritas are very forgiving, though I still wouldn’t) but this one needs all the help it can get. Cointreau, Combier, or nothing. 

Bitters: My assumption was that seven dashes each is a ludicrous quantity of bitters, and I had every intention of cutting it back (as the PDT Cocktail book does, to three and two of Peychauds and Angostura, respectively) but in looking for a version of this I actually wanted to drink, I found that the bitters were the crucial part. It should be dripping with cinnamon and clove flavors. The principal audience I believe is those looking for a bitter drink, not those looking for a Champagne one. 

Sparkling Wine: Stay away from Prosecco, which is too exuberant and pulls this drink away from itself. That said, anything bottle conditioned (the “Champagne Method”) worked very well. My standard advice for things like French 75s or Old Cubans is to use proper Champagne for its bready depth and complexity, but there’s already a lot of depth and complexity here, so I found a solid Cava or Cremant to be practically as good.