The Gift of Sparking Cocktails

What gift can I give to the readers who have everything? Sparkling cocktails, of course!

There’s always room for new spins on sparkling cocktails, and this time of year bubbles are a fun addition to Christmas and New Year’s gatherings. Last year we had fun mixing them up with friends at our New Year’s Day brunch. I’m bringing some Champagne with me for a Christmas visit to family in CT, who knows how we might finish the bottle!. I even remember mixing up a New Year’s classic with sugar cubes, Korbel and Angostoura bitters over 10 years ago at Kori & Monica’s place. Even if you don’t like bubbly you it's hard resist a sparkling cocktail.

I picked a bottle of Gloria Ferrar Blanc de Noirs California sparkling wine for my cocktail mixology. White wines from Gloria Ferrar are always consistent, offering solid performance and value. My thanks go out to my friend Marie for sharing this bottle from samples she received.

The pictures I ended up with are pretty bad. I used whatever lighting I could throw together and it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Blame my cold, or the fact that I'm not known for my photos.. I did get shots of some of the effervescing in the glass, which is interesting in itself. I hope the drinks live on well beyond their photos here.

The first cocktail I’m calling Special Punch, and is a riff on the punch The Fatal Bowl from the open house over the weekend. It is very reminiscent of the punch and the added bubbles only take it to better places.

Special Punch

2 oz cognac

1oz spiced simple syrup

3 dashes citrus bitters

Sparkling wine

Lemon peel

Mix the cognac and spice syrup. Add the bitters and pour into a flute. Top with the sparkling wine and garnish with a lemon peel.

“I will call him Mini Me”. This drink is a lighter version of the punch from the weekend and exactly what it would taste like if the sparkles were added to the punch bowl. The spices come out in force and tartness from the lemon and the wine help keep the sweetness in balance. I would make this again, frequently.

The second cocktail is the Sparkling Fruit Salad using Pimms #1, ginger syrup and fruit to make a flavored spirit a day ahead.

Sparkling Fruit Salad

10 grapes

5 strawberries

1 apple

Peel of 1 lemon

1 cup Pimms #1

1/3 cup ginger simple syrup

Sparkling wine

Slice the grapes, berries and apple, adding them to a sealable jar. Pour over the Pimms and the syrup. Cover tightly. Gently shake to mix. Allow to macerate overnight in the refrigerator. Use 2 ounces of the base in a flute to make 1 drink. Top off with the sparkling wine. Slices of the fruit and lemon peel can be used as garnish.

This was the winner for me on complexity. The sweetened up Pimms is full of dehydrated fruits, nuts, roots, etc and it really did taste like a day old fruit salad that has begun to mix together. And it's bubbly!

I finish my gift with the Sour Apple Sparkler. I still need to work on this drink. The flavors were not quite right.

Sour Apple Sparkler

1.5 oz Calvados

1 oz sweet cider

½ tsp Meyer lemon tincture

½ oz honey

1 cinnamon stick

Sparkling wine

Mix the Calvados, cider, lemon tincture and honey well. Pour into a flute. Top off with sparkling wine. Add the cinnamon stick for garnish.

Very tart and sour apple, and something not quite in balance. I haven’t decided quite what I am going to do next with this drink, but with the other two around I’m not uniquely motivated to get right on it!

I hope you enjoy your gift. And even better is it one you can re-gift without any regret!

Cheers!

Jason

Sparkling Cocktails for New Year’s Celebrating

When I say champagne cocktails most non-cocktail nerds think mimosas. I like a good mimosa, but somehow I see them as a morning-time drink; a drink fitting for brunch on New Year’s Day. For your New Year’s Eve celebrations I offer three sparkling cocktails that are easy to make and sure to please.

I have experimented with many other champagne and sparkling cocktails in the past including what I called the “Off to the Islands” that I wrote about on Global Champagne Day. A simple blend of St. Germain, brut champagne or sparkling wine and grapefruit bitters, this drink WILL transport you somewhere warm and sunny. The full recipe is at the bottom.

When using bubbly specifically to make cocktails I use inexpensive sparkling wines from outside the Champagne region. The reasons are simple. Firstly, cocktails are blends of flavors and using premium champagne means you won’t be able to taste the premium flavors and are wasting your money. Secondly, using lesser expensive selections mean you can buy more and thus make more cocktails. Once you start making them your fans line up quickly and running out is not something you want to have happen!

I had seen some print ads for Barefoot Sparkling Wine and knew from experience with their other wines that Barefoot offers excellent quality everyday drinking wines for a great value. When you can get them on sale at your local store you will do even better. As luck would have it their sparkling wines have been on sale at my local grocery store in the last two weeks, selling for $8.99 per bottle. Three styles were available to me, a Brut Cuvee, a Moscato Spumante and a sparkling Pinot Grigio. So far we have only popped the Brut. They also make a Rosé Cuvee and an Extra Dry.

Last week I saw a tweet about a sparkling cocktail named the “Jolly Old Elf” at the Celebrations At Home blog. (click for the recipe) The drink contains amaretto, cranberry juice and brut sparkling wine. Not having had the combination of cranberry and amaretto before the drink intrigued me. I bookmarked the link and with a trip to the grocery store already planned after I got off the bus, the bubbly I needed would be in my hot little hands very soon!

The “Jolly Old Elf” is a tasty drink with a luscious combination of fruit and nut flavors. I found I liked a bit more sparkle so using a larger glass worked better for me. Margot was on board with these from the first sip.

In preparation for this post I worked through two other simple sparkling cocktails including a replay of the “Off to the Islands” from above. I can’t get enough of St. Germain and sparkling wine. I think they are some kind of weird non-identical twins seperated at birth. They don't look alike, they don't taste alike, but they make you smile when you see them together.

The third one is a Sparkling Chambord Cocktail jazzed up with some orange bitters. The flavors of berry and citrus blend perfectly with dry sparkling wine. The color of this cocktail is an attractor, a deep purple with columns of small bubbles drifting up from the bottom of the glass.

Any or all of these cocktails will jazz up your New Year’s celebrations. If you normally have a bottle of bubbly waiting for the final stroke of the clock and the debut of the new year, these cocktails will be a nice warm up. In my experience bubbles promote conversation so these types of drinks also work well in mixed groups where not everyone knows each other.

However you imbibe this New Year’s Eve I hope you have lots of fun saying good bye to another year. Whatever you do please be safe. Starting a new year with a calamity from bad drinking choices is definitely never a resolution of mine!

Cheers!

--Jason

p.s. Before I could even get this posted I got an e-mail from Food & Wine Magazine with a list of champagne cocktails. Most are a bit more elaborate than mine, but if you need more ideas…

{ Recipes }

Off To The Islands

1 oz St. Germain
4 dashes Scrappy’s Grapefruit bitters
Barefoot Brut Cuvee Sparkling Wine
Lemon twist

Mix and serve.

Chambord Cocktail

1 oz Chambord
4 dashes Regan's Orange bitters
Barefoot Brut Cuvee Sparkling Wine

Mix and serve.

St-Germain Liqueur

Local Sips December 19th, 2010

Southern New Hampshire has lots of beverage action these days. I caught two events this past week, a bubbly tasting at The Drinkery and the grand opening of the new space for Moonlight Meadery.

I realized I had a broken camera lens this week and my backup point-and-shoot and other lenses weren’t doing it for me. Lighting also challenged me. While I am learning a lot as a take each new batch of photos, it sure can be frustrating!

A Bubbly Tasting at the Drinkery

Joan at The Drinkery has been lining up events to showcase her inventory and provide opportunities for local makers and distributors to engage her patrons. This past week she lined up five different bubbly’s just in time for holiday entertaining.

Mumm Napa Brut Prestige
This was the only of the lineup I had had before and I never turn down an opportunity to taste some bubbly! This sparkler has flavors of sour green apple with lots of small bubbles.

Gerard Metz Cremant d’Alsace

There was a flavor here that I could place. I conjectured quince and Joan had some quince spread handy for me to compare the flavor with. It wasn’t conclusive. Several of the tasters, myself included, agreed there was some bitter almond in the finish. I had never had a cremant before and I am naively assuming the differences from other sparklers are due to style.

Mumm Napa DVX 2000

This sparkling wine was a real treat. The aromas coming off this glass were truly intriguing. One sip and I realized I was tasting something unique. Fruit flavors were in wonderful balance with vanilla. I also found flavors of buttered toast that I often associate with oaked Chardonnay that I never expected to be there.

G.H. Mumm Brut

This was the only Champagne in the lineup and had well balanced flavors of herbs and citrus. The level of dryness made with think it should be an Extra Brut, but that may have been due to fatigued taste buds.

Petalo Il Vino dell’Amore Proseco

A wonderfully sweet sparkling wine to finish the tasting with. A very perfumed nose and lots of peach flavors made me smile.

Any of these sparklers would serve you well for holiday celebrations. If you live in the Londonderry, NH area and need any of these items be sure and pay Joan a visit at The Drinkery.

Moonlight Meadery Opens in Londonderry

I don’t have a lot of experience with mead so it is with much excitement that I can say a new meadery has opened 3 minutes from my house!

Michael Fairbrother is the proprietor of this new business and based on the information on the web site he has over 15 years of mead-making experience. I also know that he has been a long-time member of Brew Free or Die (BFD) a New Hampshire based home brewing club. Getting to know the members of BFD is on my 2011 agenda.

I popped in during the grand opening of the new space and tasted a couple of meads.

Michael suggested that I try their Sensual, a traditional mead. I found it dry and refreshing with a some nuttiness and a bit of alcohol in the finish. I had heard he makes a pretty mean blueberry mead, named Wild, which reminded me of a light, dry red wine. I am betting it could be paired similarly to a Chianti or a Beaujolais. To cap off my short visit Michael suggested the Desire, made with black currants. I have made black currant influenced wines in the past so I was very excited to try another variation. It smelled like sautéing fruit with plenty of sweetness to go around. This style of mead was the Northeast Regional Homebrew (hosted by BFD) Best in Show winner for 2009. Seems well deserved.

I took home bottles of Desire and Madagascar for future enjoyment. A gift, because he can’t legally sell it yet, of a bottle of a braggit a honey brew made in a Russian Imperial Stout style was included with my purchase. I have already enjoyed this and have to say that the blend of beer and mead ingredients makes for a wonderfully unique experience, one a might have to attempt to recreate.

I also asked Michael if I could contact him in the new year to talk about what he went through to launch his business, something Margot and I have been thinking about for a number of years now.

Check out the Moonlight Meadery web site for the mead lineup, location, hours and special events.

Cheers!

--Jason

Global Champagne Day

Thursday October 28th was Global Champagne Day and the tweets were flying fast & furious. Vintuba was the organizer of the event providing links to meetup.com groups, classic pairings and educational facts about champagne. Sign us up! The Twitter hashtag #champagne was used to tag tweets during the event.

( Getting ready to party! )

One thing that was clear from several of the web sites advertising the event was that we were talking about real champagne, from the Champagne region of France, made in the traditional style. A link for a petition from the Office of Champagne USA was circulating before and during the event. The petition was entitled “Demand Truth-In-Labeling” and was intended to represent the protection of places of origin in the wine world. The Office of Champagne USA is the domestic representative of a champagne focused trade group in France. Reading the list of regions being represented I was a bit suspicious. I held off trying not to mix my politics and fun.

Leading up to the event I learned two things about champagne. First off, grower produced, often considered artisanal champagne, selections can be even more interesting than the mass produced named brands that we all know. And secondly, my local New Hampshire Liquor Store does not have a great selection of real French champagne, and no grower produced bottles that I could see. I went with the Piper-Heidsieck Brut and Moet & Chandon Imperial Nectar instead. We had never had either of them so at least they were new to us!

My plans up front were to pair the champagnes with a several different foods and make two different kinds of cocktails. I gathered smoked salmon pate, smoked oysters, gorgonzola cheese, potato chips, crusty French bread and dark chocolate. We’d be leading off with hot buttered popcorn, a go-to casual pairing for a sommelier friend of ours. We hadn’t tried that or fresh French fries with bubbly yet and I guess we would find we were missing out.

( Did somebody say champagne with potato chips? )

Piper-Heidsieck dates back to 1785 and currently produces over 5 million bottles of champagne each year. They own no vineyards of their own and source grapes from 60 vineyards around the Champagne region, making 6 styles of champagne including vintage offerings in the very best of years. The Remy-Countreau wine and spirits group acquired Piper-Heidsieck in 1990.

The Piper-Heidsieck NV Brut has some grapefruit on the nose, citrus flavors and a long smooth finish. The balance of tart and sweet reminded us of Granny Smith apples.

Moet & Chandon is one of the largest champagne producers with annual output of 26 million bottles. Established in 1743 the house currently owns 2,500 acres of vineyards. Dom Perignon is made by Moet and is the most recognizable champagne label in the world. Moet & Chandon are co-owners of the Moet-Hennessy / Louis Vuitton company, supplier of other fine spirits and luxury goods.

The Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial is a demi-sec (semi-sweet) champagne. The aromas were focused and the flavors of honey and dried fruit were easily detected. It is sweet, but not so much so that the crispness is lost.

Both champagnes were great with the hot buttered popcorn. Something about the warm butter makes this work really well. The pairing with the potato chips didn’t evoke the same feelings but was not terrible. We could see where french fries would come into play here.

( A TV time snack goes on a date with champagne! )

The gorgonzola cheese was overpowering for the Piper, but was an average match for the Moet. Not a big player in the pairings, but we sure enjoyed eating it!

Neither of us actually liked the smoked oysters and the champagne didn’t help with that based on our experience. The smoked salmon pate however was fantastic with the Piper and a of touch of creamy dill mustard brought out a bit of the sweetness in the champagne.

The Imperial Nectar found a good pairing with some homemade raspberry jam on crusty French bread. So simple. The crispness of the champagne stood up to the combined sweetness and the jam was along for the finish. Neither champagne was a stellar match for the dark chocolate covered caramels, but the Imperial Nectar stood up to the sugar the best. No surprise.

I made two cocktails, both of which came out great. The second is one of my best tasting cocktails ever.

Ginger Lemon Bubbles
1 oz sweetened ginger-infused vodka
2 healthy dashes of Angostura bitters
Moet Nectar Imperial
Lemon twist & lemon on the rim of the coupe style glass.

Mix and serve.

Off To The Islands

1 oz St. Germain
4 dashes Scrappy’s Grapefruit bitters
Piper-Heidsieck Brut
Lemon twist

Mix and serve.

The “Off To The Islands” has an incredible balance of crisp and sweet with flavors of island fruit and citrus. The "Ginger Lemon Bubbles" has a warmth from the spicy ginger with nice vibrant flavors from the citrus and bitters. The sweetness from the champagne was a nice foundation. We'll be making both of this again soon!

We very much enjoyed learning a little bit more about champagne and trying a few new to us bottles for Global Champagne Day. These online wine events seem to be quite popular and clearly give folks in disparate locations a way to share what they are drinking, where they are drinking and a bit of their lives with each other in celebration of beverages we all love!

Cheers!

--Jason