Valentine’s Day drinks: romantic cocktails and Champagne for two

Two people do not need a menu. Choose one drink for each part of the evening, make both glasses at once, and bring them out together. Three drinks each across an evening is plenty.

Units are worked out at typical strengths: 40% ABV for whisky and other spirits, 11 to 12% for sparkling wine, and the usual strength of each liqueur and vermouth. Check your own bottles.

St Valentine’s feast falls on 14 February. Its link with love goes back to Chaucer, whose Parlement of Foules, written around 1381, has the birds choosing their mates “on seynt Valentynes day”.

A glass of cold champagne on its own is a fine start. A 750ml bottle fills about eight flutes at 90ml, so one bottle covers the opening drinks for two with plenty left for dinner. A dry crémant or prosecco does the same job for less.

The Kir Royale is 10ml crème de cassis in a chilled champagne flute, with 90ml of cold champagne poured slowly over it. Do not stir it; the colour rises through the wine on its own. At one part cassis to nine of wine it blushes rather than glows. A heavier pour turns it into a soft drink.

The Champagne Cocktail changes as it is drunk. Soak a sugar cube with two dashes of Angostura, drop it into a chilled flute, add 10ml cognac and top slowly with 90ml of cold champagne poured down the side. Express a lemon twist over it and drop it in. The cube keeps dissolving and sending up bubbles, so the glass grows sweeter towards the end. Never stir it, and buy a champagne you would drink on its own, because there is little else in the glass.

The Rossini is the pink one: 50ml of cold strawberry purée in a chilled flute, with 100ml of prosecco added slowly and folded in. Push the purée through a fine sieve to take out the seeds, and add a few drops of lemon to hold the colour. A Bellini is the same build with white peach purée.

The French 75 is the bridge from the champagne. Shake 30ml gin, 15ml fresh lemon juice and 15ml simple syrup hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds, double strain into a chilled flute, and top gently with 60ml of well-chilled champagne. Express a strip of lemon peel over it and rest it on the rim. Never shake the champagne.

The Clover Club is a gin sour coloured by raspberry. Dry shake 45ml gin, 15ml fresh lemon juice, 15ml raspberry syrup and egg white without ice for 10 to 15 seconds, then add ice and shake for 10 to 12 more. Double strain into a chilled coupe and lay three raspberries on a pick across the rim. The dry shake builds the foam; the iced shake sets it. Use British Lion eggs, which the Food Standards Agency advises are safe to eat raw.

The Explorers Gold is our honey sour, and it calls for spiced rum. Dry shake 50ml Expedition Spiced Rum, 25ml honey syrup made two parts honey to one of warm water, 25ml fresh lemon juice and an egg white for 15 seconds, then add ice and shake for 12 more. Double strain into a chilled coupe and dot two dashes of Angostura across the foam.

The Boulevardier suits someone who likes a Negroni: 45ml bourbon, 30ml Campari and 30ml sweet vermouth, stirred with ice for 20 to 25 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with orange peel expressed over it. It is the strongest drink here, so make it the only one.

The Brandy Alexander is 30ml cognac, 30ml dark crème de cacao and 30ml cold double cream, shaken very hard with ice for 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass, with fresh nutmeg grated over. One is enough.

The Espresso Martini is 50ml vodka, 30ml Kahlúa and 10ml simple syrup, with a strong shot of fresh espresso added hot and last, then shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and fine strained into a chilled martini glass, with three coffee beans on the foam. The foam comes from the crema, so the shot has to be freshly pulled.

Coffee does not undo alcohol. An Espresso Martini leaves you as drunk as the vodka in it, only more awake.

The Chocolate Martini is 45ml vodka, 30ml chocolate liqueur and 15ml single cream, shaken hard and double strained into a martini glass from the freezer, with dark chocolate shaved over. It lives on being very cold.

If one of you would rather have coffee, make an Irish Coffee: a teaspoon of demerara sugar stirred into 120ml hot filter coffee in a warmed glass, then 50ml Irish whiskey, with 50ml cream whipped to the thickness of pouring custard floated over the back of a warm spoon.

If one of you is not drinking, make the alcohol-free drink in the same shape of glass and bring both out together.

The Rose Lemonade Fizz is 25ml rose syrup and 25ml fresh lemon juice in a champagne flute, topped slowly with chilled sparkling water and stirred once. Use rose syrup, not rose water: rose water is unsweetened and far stronger, and 25ml of it would ruin the glass.

The Virgin Passion Fruit Martini is the pulp of two passion fruits, 50ml passion fruit juice, 25ml vanilla syrup and 15ml fresh lime juice, shaken hard and strained into a chilled coupe, with half a passion fruit floated on the foam and a small glass of chilled sparkling apple juice on the side.

The Chocolate Orange Mocktail does the job of a Brandy Alexander: 75ml fresh orange juice, 20ml chocolate syrup and 22.5ml single cream, shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe.

Make the raspberry and honey syrups, sieve the strawberry purée, soak the sugar cubes and chill the flutes, the coupes and the bottle. Squeeze the lemons just before the first drink. Then every drink takes a couple of minutes, and the evening happens at the table, not the counter.

Make anything new once the weekend before. A drink you know is better than an ambitious one made for the first time with someone watching.

Burns Night comes three weeks earlier, and Burns Night drinks covers the supper. Winter cocktails runs to the end of February, and the seasonal cocktails calendar has the rest of the year.