Champagne Cocktail
The Champagne Cocktail is a sugar cube soaked in Angostura, dropped into a flute, given a small measure of cognac and topped with cold champagne. Jerry Thomas printed it in 1862, which makes it one of the oldest recipes still in general circulation and comfortably the oldest sparkling one. It also qualifies as a cocktail under the original 1806 definition: spirit, sugar, water and bitters. The water simply arrives as champagne, which is a considerably better joke than most drinks manage. The cube is the mechanism and the theatre at once. Dropped in whole it sits at the bottom of the glass streaming bubbles for the drink's entire life, dissolving slowly and releasing sugar and bitters as it goes, so the first mouthful is dry and the last is noticeably richer. It is the simplest piece of kinetic sculpture in the canon, and it is why the drink must be built and never stirred.
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Lemon Twist expressed and dropped in
Ingredients
1 cube
The engine. Dropped in whole it streams bubbles from the base and dissolves across the drink's whole life, so no two mouthfuls are the same. Loose sugar dissolves at once and removes the mechanism entirely.
2 dashes
Two dashes soaked into the cube rather than into the wine, so the clove and cinnamon release gradually alongside the sugar. It is also what makes this a cocktail by the 1806 definition.
10ml
A later addition that became standard. Ten millilitres deepens the drink from aperitif to occasion without crowding the wine, and the 1862 original had none at all.
90ml
Brut and properly cold. There is nothing between you and the wine except a cube, two dashes and ten millilitres of brandy, so this is the one drink in the family where the bottle genuinely matters.
Instructions
Soak a sugar cube with the Angostura and drop it into a chilled flute.
Add the cognac.
Top slowly with cold champagne, poured down the side of the glass.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Never stir it. The cube dissolving gradually is the whole recipe, and one stir spends the effect in a second and leaves you with sweetened champagne. Build it and hand it over. Use a proper cube rather than loose sugar. Granulated dissolves instantly and there is no mechanism left, which is why the sugar cube survives in this one drink long after it was abolished everywhere else in bartending. Buy a champagne you would drink on its own. There is almost nothing between you and the wine here: a cube, two dashes and a small measure of brandy. This is the page where the good bottle genuinely justifies its price, and a thin champagne has nowhere to hide.
Behind the Champagne Cocktail
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The drink appears in Jerry Thomas's How to Mix Drinks of 1862, the first cocktail book published anywhere, already in its essential form: sugar, bitters and champagne.
That makes it one of the oldest recipes still poured regularly and comfortably the oldest sparkling one. It also makes it a cocktail in the strict 1806 sense, which specified spirit, sugar, water and bitters and excluded everything else. Champagne stands in for the water, which is either a technicality or a very good joke depending on your mood.
The cognac came later and became standard through the Paris bars of the interwar years. Casablanca fixed the order in the public imagination in 1942, and it has never really left.
The Working Cube
Dropped whole into a flute, a sugar cube does not dissolve quickly. It sits at the base and gives way slowly over ten minutes or so, and while it does, the dissolving sugar provides nucleation points for carbon dioxide, so a steady stream of bubbles rises from it continuously.
That does two things. It looks extraordinary, which is most of why the drink survives. And it means the sugar and the bitters soaked into it release gradually rather than all at once, so the drink genuinely changes as you drink it: dry and sharp at the start, rounder and spicier at the end.
No other cocktail does this. It is the reason the sugar cube persists here in an era where every other recipe has moved to syrup.
The Cognac Question
The 1862 original has no brandy in it. The official specification carries ten millilitres, and both are poured under the same name.
The difference is more than strength. Without cognac the drink is sharper and more obviously an aperitif: champagne, spice and a rising sweetness. With it there is a layer of oak and dried fruit underneath, and it becomes something to raise rather than something to sip before dinner. Ten millilitres is deliberately restrained, because the wine is the point and a heavier pour starts arguing with it.
Which Champagne
Almost every other sparkling cocktail buries the wine. A Bellini is mostly peach, a French 75 is mostly gin and lemon, a mimosa is mostly orange juice. Here the additions amount to a cube, two dashes and ten millilitres of brandy.
That means the wine is what you are drinking, and a thin, sharp, industrial champagne has nowhere to hide. Brut rather than demi-sec, because there is sugar arriving from the cube already.
A good crémant works perfectly well and costs a fraction as much. What does not work is prosecco: it is softer and fruitier, and against Angostura it reads slightly confected.
How to Serve It
Built in a chilled flute in under a minute: cube soaked and dropped, cognac, champagne poured slowly down the side, lemon twist expressed over the top.
Served while the cube is still working, which is the whole point. It is ceremony at built-drink effort, and it is the right answer for a toast that deserves more than a plain pour.
Make it at home
The Spirit
CognacGrape brandy from the Cognac region of western France, twice distilled in copper pot stills and aged in French oak. Ugni Blanc does nearly all the work, a thin acidic wine that makes poor drinking and excellent spirit, and the age classifications on the label are legally defined minimums.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really need a sugar cube?
Is the cognac traditional?
What champagne should I use?
Why should I not stir it?
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits