Champagne Cocktails
12 recipes
This Field Manual holds 12 recipes built on champagne or sparkling wine. The bubbles are an ingredient rather than a mixer, and that changes the order of work: everything else goes in first, the wine goes in last, and nothing gets stirred afterwards.
Dryness decides the drink. A brut keeps a sugar cube or a liqueur in check, where a demi-sec on top of either turns cloying. Temperature does the rest, because a warm bottle loses carbonation as it pours and the drink is flat before it reaches the table. Prosecco and cava work in most of these and cost less; the exception is anything where the wine is most of the glass, which is where the better bottle shows.
Difficulty Level
Bellini
The Bellini was born at Harry’s Bar in Venice, perfected through the 1940s by founder Giuseppe Cipriani and named in 1948 for the painter: the drink’s soft pink, Cipriani said,
Buck’s Fizz
The Buck’s Fizz is the older sibling in the orange-and-champagne family, and the British one: invented in 1921 by barman Malachy McGarry at Buck’s Club in Mayfair, four years
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,
Champagne Punch
The Champagne Punch is a celebration batch for gatherings where elegance matters more than warmth: a chilled base of cognac, orange liqueur, fresh orange juice and lemon, with two
Death in the Afternoon
Death in the Afternoon was created by Ernest Hemingway and submitted to a 1935 celebrity cocktail collection called So Red the Nose, in which notable figures contributed original
Hugo Spritz
The Hugo Spritz is the Alps answering Venice: created in 2005 by Roland Gruber, a bartender in Naturns in South Tyrol, as a lighter alternative to the bitter spritzes ruling the
Kir Royale
The Kir Royale carries the name of a war hero. Canon Félix Kir was a priest, a Resistance figure who helped thousands escape occupied France, and mayor of Dijon from 1945 until
Limoncello Spritz
The Limoncello Spritz is a digestivo promoted to the aperitivo hour. Limoncello was made to be drunk ice-cold in small glasses after dinner, and lengthening it with prosecco and
Mead Royale
The Mead Royale is our celebration pour for St David's Day: dry Welsh mead and elderflower liqueur in a flute, topped with sparkling wine and finished with a lemon twist. It
Mimosa
The Mimosa is equal parts sparkling wine and fresh orange juice, and the equal-parts pour is both its signature and its civilising feature. Half wine, half sunshine, low enough in
Rossini
The Rossini is the Bellini’s summer sibling, named with the same Venetian logic for another Italian master: strawberries where the peaches were, prosecco as before, and the
Sgroppino
The Sgroppino is Venice untying dinner's knot: lemon sorbet whisked with prosecco and a thread of vodka into a froth you can drink. It is the Veneto's palate cleanser between