Champagne Cocktail

As much as I love a good cocktail, there is something about the simple elegance of a glass of champagne to start a meal. The champagne cocktail is the perfect compromise, you may never be as suave and debonair as Rick Blaine, but this is a good start.

Champagne cocktails of various types have appeared in publications going back as far as the 1860s.  Mark Twain’s travelogue “The Innocents Abroad,” published in 1869, mentions one.  That's really all the pertinent background for this one, because we all know nobody is here for a history lesson.

This is a pretty standard recipe that I find starts an evening off in the right direction.  Begin by placing a sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne glass (coupe if you have them, if not a flute works too), douse the cube in angostura bitters, fill the glass with champagne, and garnish with a lemon twist.  I prefer slightly sweeter champagne to better balance the bitters.  When this drink was first created, doux champagnes (over 5% sugar) were quite popular, I would not go this sweet, but a dry (1.7-3.5% sugar) or extra dry (1.2-2% sugar) works well.  Serve this the next time a Moroccan bar owner, gun runner, or Spanish freedom fighter strolls in off the street.

Champagne Cocktail

1 sugar cube

6 dashes bitters

champagne

Place the sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne glass, douse with bitters, fill with champagne, and garnish with a lemon twist.

Seelbach Cocktail

To start the year off right I have a pre-prohibition cocktail to add to your recreational rolodex.  The intriguing combination of champagne, bourbon and bitters brought me to this drink, but the smart flavor is what will keep you coming back.

The legendary Seelbach Hotel of the same name, host to presidents, gangsters, writers, and ne’er-do-wells, is the birthplace of this fine pick-me-up.   According to legend the drink was accidently discovered in 1917 when a bartender topped a manhattan from an overflowing champagne bottle.  The drink gained instant popularity but was lost during prohibition when the hotel stopped serving booze.  Fortunatley for us, the recipe was rediscovered in1995 and put back into circulation.

To make the Seelbach cocktail, start one ounce of bourbon in a mixing glass.  To hold to tradition make sure it is a strong Kentucky bourbon, Woodford Reserve is a good choice.  Add one half ounce Cointreau, seven dashes angostura bitters, and seven dashes peychaud bitters.  Stir with ice until chilled and pour into a chilled champagne flute, top with a dry champagne of your choice, and garnish with an orange twist.  Imagine yourself sitting at the bar with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Capone sharing a cigar, a fine drink, and a healthy amount of bullshit.

Seelbach Cocktail

1 oz bourbon

½ oz cointreau

7 dashes angostura bitters

7 dashes peychaud’s bitters

champagne

Combine the bourbon, cointreau, and bitters in a mixing glass, fill with ice and stir.  Strain into a chilled champagne flute, fill with champagne and garnish with an orange twist.

Serendipiti

I had the good fortune of spending some time with bartender Colin Field at the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz in Paris recently. We discussed many topics ranging from cocktails to shotguns, mostly cocktails. This is a calvados and champagne based concoction of his creation and is a great way to start a cold winter’s eve.

While this is a recent creation it comes from one of the all time classic cocktail birthing grounds and it has all the characteristics of a good cocktail.  It was created in 1994 by Colin at the Bar Hemingway.  Based on the name I am guessing it was somewhat of an accidental discovery, but that is purely conjecture on my part so let's move on to the best part.

There is just something about Calvados that calls out to be consumed in the late fall and winter, this is a perfectly balanced blend of flavors that will dance across your tongue. In deference to Colin’s unimpeachable credentials (and an already perfect cocktail) I am leaving the proportions just as he wrote it.  Begin with an old fashioned glass, add one and a quarter ounces of calvados, a teaspoon of sugar, and two sprigs of fresh mint, muddle.  Fill with ice and add one and three quarter ounces of apple juice, stir, and top with champagne (about three ounces).

Serendpiti

1 ¼ oz calvados

1 ¾ oz apple juice

1 tsp sugar

2 springs of fresh mint

champagne

Place the first four ingredients in an ice filled old fashioned glass and stir. Fill with champagne.

The Old Cuban

August has become the month of rum for me and I have a handful of libations for your late summer indulgence. The first of which is the Old Cuban. Think of this as a more sophisticated mojito, a drink fit for a heavily compensated leader of a banana republic.

The true origin of this drink is much less romantic so I prefer to let my imagination wander to simpler times when the shady politicians and unscrupulous businessmen plied their trades with little government intervention and the world was none the wiser. The drink actually originated recently by Audrey Saunders of the Pegu Club in New York, not to be confused with this Pegu Club. It has the complex flavor balance of other vintage cocktails we have sampled and deserves a place among the old classics.

Start with ¾ ounce of fresh lime juice, ¾ ounce of pure cane simple syrup and six small to medium sized mint leaves in a cocktail shaker, muddle. Fill the shaker with ice, add two ounces of an aged dark rum, I like Cruzan. Top it off with a couple dashes of Angostura bitters and shake. Pour the mixture into a chilled cocktail glass and top it off with chilled Champagne, approximately 1 ½ to 2 ounces. For your first sip, close your eyes and imagine yourself as a United Fruit Company executive hopping around Central America on a Pan Am Clipper.

The Old Cuban

¾ oz lime juice

¾ oz pure cane simple syrup

6 mint leaves

2 oz aged dark rum

2 dashes angostura bitters

1 ½ - 2 oz champagne

Muddle lime juice, syrup and mint in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice; add rum and bitters, shake vigorously. Pour into a cocktail glass and top with champagne.

Buck’s Fizz

To continue on our pre-noon cocktail cruise, we will follow up the granddaddy of all OJ based morning beverages, the screwdriver, with a precursor (or a mere coincidental creation) to the mimosa, another morning classic. We will make sure to hit that in the future, but today our drink of choice is the Buck’s Fizz, not to be confused with the 80's pop group of the same name.

In an effort to prevent a modern flare up of the Hundred Years’ War and keep our Anglophile and Francophile readers happy, we will make a definite distinction between the Buck’s Fizz and the Mimosa; the former being created in 1921 in the Buck’s Club in London, the latter being created in Paris four years later. (I am starting to see a trend in cocktails named for the club in which they originated.) The Buck’s Fizz is distinct in that it has never revealed secret ingredients, which, according to our sources deep in MI6, this recipe reveals.

To make this clandestine cocktail, begin by pouring 2 ounces of freshly squeezed orange juice into a champagne flute. Add a dash of cherry brandy and ¼ ounce of Plymouth gin (this is one of London’s best kept secrets). Stir gently and top with Prosecco (using Champagne only ignites historical tensions).

Buck’s Fizz

2 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

1 dash cherry brandy

¼ oz gin

prosecco

Pour orange juice into a champagne flute. Add brandy and gin. Top with Prosecco and serve, pinky extended.

The French 75

I will never forget the first time I had ordered a French 75. It was New Years Eve and we had gone out to a little French bistro with a group of friends. As everyone was perusing the menu and ordering cocktails I looked over the list of house cocktails and saw the French 75. Always looking to try new drinks and thinking the combination of gin and champagne was interesting I decided to give it a shot.

Sitting next to me was a great friend and drinking buddy of mine. The waitress set down his standard bourbon in front of him and then set a champagne flute in front of me. My friend looked over with a confused look and in one sentence questioned my sexuality, insulted my wife and degraded the French before asking what it was. Once I told him, he asked if he could try it.

I have always enjoyed variations on the champagne cocktail served in the restaurants all over Paris and eagerly order the specialty of the house on most occasions. My current favorite is from the Rôtisserie du Beaujolais, but let’s save that for another time. The French 75 is slightly stronger than many other champagne based apéritifs, but a good balance of flavors.

I like the smooth flavor of Plymouth gin in this drink. Start with a cocktail shaker filled with ice and add 1 ounce of gin, add one teaspoon of bakers sugar (also called superfine and ultrafine) and the juice of one lemon wedge. Shake vigorously and pour into a champagne flute. Fill the remainder of the flute with the champagne (or prosecco) of your choice.

This is a great drink anytime of the day and all year long, but is very well suited to warm weather, green grass and lazy afternoons!

French 75

1 oz gin

½ tsp sugar

juice of 1 lemon wedge

champagne

In a cocktail shaker, combine the gin, sugar and lemon juice and shake well with cracked ice. Strain the gin mixture into a champagne flute. Top off with champagne.