Napoleon

Difford’s Guide
Discerning Drinkers (33 ratings)
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    Napoleon

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Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 2⁄3 oz Hayman's London Dry Gin
1⁄2 oz Dubonnet/French rouge aromatised wine
1⁄4 oz Fernet Branca liqueur
1⁄4 oz Cointreau triple sec liqueur
2 drop Saline solution 4:1 (20g sea salt to 80g water)
× 1 1 serving
Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist.
  3. STIR all ingredients with ice.
  4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
  5. EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol
Medium
Boozy
Strength 7/10
Sweet
Medium
Dry/sour
Sweet to sour 8/10
More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Rust-coloured, spirituous and bittersweet with assertive fernet herbal notes. Good as an aperitivo but brilliant as a digestivo.

View readers' comments

History:

Adapted from a recipe in Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book.

NAPOLEON COCKTAIL.
1 Dash Fernet Branca.
1 Dash Curaçao.
1 Dash Dubonnet.
1 Glass Dry Gin.
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Squeeze lemon peel on top.

Harry Craddock, 1930

Alcohol content:

  • 1.6 standard drinks
  • 28.27% alc./vol. (28.27° proof)
  • 22.6 grams of pure alcohol

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Tuber Magnatum’s Avatar Tuber Magnatum
5th June 2023 at 22:42
For those like me who find Fernet-Branca cocktails on the bitter side, I found that a drop of 20% saline helped here. It toned the bitterness down without otherwise taking away from the overall flavour profile.
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Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
6th June 2023 at 10:52
Thanks, Tuber. Agreed! I've added 2 drops of saline to the recipe.
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John Hinojos’ Avatar John Hinojos
12th April 2022 at 00:31
Good as an aperitif. Fernet add a unique touch of herbal and spicy.
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