Coming again this month, is the next Cocktail of the Month from the Substack, the Champagne Cocktail:
With Halloween over, and the holiday season starting out, let’s go with something simple, flexible, and fun for the cocktail of the month for November, the Champagne Cocktail.
The Origin
This is an old drink, dating back to the 1800s, documented in the Bar-Tender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas:
Now, looking at that recipe, one may think of the recipe for an Old Fashioned, which also uses sugar, bitters, and (optional) citrus zest. Considering that there are recipes for champagne cocktails that include an ounce of spirit (I’ll get to that later, promise), I can also see someone deciding to turn their Old Fashioned into a long drink by topping it with champagne.
There are also arguments that the Champagne Cocktail evolved from older punches, being scaled down to something that can be whipped up quickly and as a single serving drink.
The Recipe
- 1 sugar cube/1 teaspoon sugar
- 2-3 dashes bitters
- Champagne (or sparkling wine of choice)
To build the drink, chill either a flute or coupe, drop in a sugar cube, douse it in bitters (or use a bittered sugar cube), and top with champagne. Give a brief stir if you’d like. There is no garnish needed, but to honor the history, feel free to go with a twist of lemon zest.
Now, sugar cubes aren’t that popular (outside of bartenders, tea houses, and LSD enthusiasts) and it’s entirely possible to make this with regular sugar or simple syrup. This has the pro of making sure the sugar will be fully dissolved, with the con of missing one visual aesthetic of the classic drink. The bold line of bubbles coming up from the sugar cube (and all of its nucleation points).
Variations
As I mentioned above (told you I’d get to it), there are quite a few variations on this drink. Most of them are adding an ounce of spirit to the drink. You can add the ounce of spirit in before topping with champagne. If you’re switching to simple and adding spirit, I’d recommend adding everything but the champagne to a shaker and shaking it to chill and combine before straining into the flute.
For the spirits to add, the most frequent ones called for are bourbon or brandy (with apple brandy making frequent appearances). Simple change to the recipe that gives a different drink:
- 1 sugar cube/1-2 teaspoon simple syrup
- 2-3 dashes bitters
- 1 part (1 oz) bourbon/brandy
- Champagne (or sparkling wine of choice)
For those who are familiar with the Wisconsin/Brandy Old Fashioned, which is generally topped with a sparkling mixer (soda water, tonic, ginger, etc.), this seems a fair call for a variation on that as well.
Batch Prepping
To batch this is easy. Build a station to let your guests make their own. You can either provide a selection of bittered sugar cubes, or simply a pile of sugar cubes and a selection of bitters to use. Provide chilled sparkling wine, and have fun with it.
Mocktail Version
For those out there looking for a non-alcoholic version of this drink, you would need to make due with a NA champagne, or you could substitute in flavored seltzers. Even in that case, you would still have bitters in there, so if you’re avoiding alcohol entirely, that will be a problem (unless you’re going with NA bitters as well).
So there we go, a simple drink for your November and holidays. It’s a low ABV sipper, easy to throw together, and festive enough for gatherings. Is this a drink you’ve had before?
My wife has been on a sparkling wine kick lately, she likes one called Andre.
She is too jumpy to open it, so that’s my job.
I might try to get her to try this one.
Tonight, I’m making apple cider syrup for apple old fashioneds.
Andre Cold Duck?
It’s this one:
https://www.totalwine.com/wine/champagne-sparkling-wine/sparkling-wine/brut/andre-brut/p/982750
I figured it was cheap, but I didn’t realize it was that cheap.
But she married me, so obviously her standards are pretty low.
I’m getting my dog back! So I’m told. No dangerous dog bullshit either. Again, as I’m told. Which is a mini-miracle to me. I annoyed the fuck out of them before I got the guy high enough to actually tell me.
The responding animal control officer said he didn’t believe in demons until he saw my little guy doing his thing. Fun fact – his name in the pound was Ares. I guess he has definitely earned that name though I’ll probably stick with the one I gave him.
I look crazy taking him back to everyone and it’s tough to kind of explain to people who aren’t present why the dog gets like that with one person. And there’s no way in hell I could let that dog be killed when I know full damn well that the dog only started acting like that because he saw someone trying to attack me. That’s a bunch of bullshit. Dog isn’t a monster. He’s not some pit who just randomly snapped and that’s how it was being painted.
That’s good news.
Ares is a cool name for a dog.
I named my Husky Maximus because I had just watched Gladiator for the 100th time before we got him.
I thought that was an impressive moniker, but we all just call him Max, which is not nearly as cool.
My wife still hasent seen Gladiator.
I told her it’s one of two movies that will make grown men cry.
Great news!
Good.
So how did you like the Gruet? Albuquerque’s finest champagne!
I just passed my DOT physical, a total bullshit way the feds fuck with you and funnel money to docs so I’ll be drinking eggnog tonight.
And this time CPRM it will have rum in it.
Granted I have to find eggnog first.