The Champagne Cocktail


Champagne Cocktail

Another New Year winds the calendar back up again, and to help you utilize some of the extra champagne you might have on hand, I thought I’d introduce you to one of my favorite champagne libations, the Champagne Cocktail.

The first bartender’s guide ever written was aptly named “The Bar Tender’s Guide”, and was published by Jerry Thomas in 1862. This book contained recipes for over 200 different drinks, but only 10 of them were cocktails. The rest were punches, flips, fizzes, juleps, toddies, slings, and various other concoctions. And nestled in between the generically named “Whiskey Cocktail” and “Gin Cocktail”, we find the first printed recipe for the “Champagne Cocktail”. Its recipe of sugar, bitters, champagne, and a slice of lemon peel is virtually identical to what is still served today.

Even for beginners, the Champagne cocktail is perhaps the easiest cocktail to make, and requires no special equipment, save perhaps that of a champagne glass (flute style preferred).

Champagne Cocktail

  • 5 ounces champagne
  • 1 sugar cube
  • 2 to 3 dashes Angostura bitters

Place sugar cube at the bottom of the champagne glass. Add several dashes of bitters, and then top gently with champagne.
Garnish with a lemon twist, or slice of fruit or berries in season.

What makes this a Champagne Cocktail instead of just a glass of champagne flavored with sugar and bitters, is that it essentially follows the pattern of how the cocktail was originally defined nearly 200 years ago. It was on May 13th, 1806 that the editor of “The Balance and Columbian Repository” responded to a readers query as to what this thing called a “cock tail” was that they saw referenced in the previous week’s edition. Here is the answer that was provided:

“As I make it a point, never to publish anything (under my editorial head) but which I can explain, I shall not hesitate to gratify the curiosity of my inquisitive correspondent: Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”

Thus defining a “cock tail” as being “spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters”. The Champagne in this situation taking on the role of both the spirit and the water.

So celebrate the New Year, and have a very old cocktail.

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January 9th, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Thomas
Posted on:
January 9, 2006 at 7:32 am

Sugar and bitters is all very good, but if you want a really nice Champagne Cocktail, follow Charles Baker’s advice and add cognac to the glass before you pour the champagne. Truly memorable.

(Baker calls for 2 jiggers (3 oz.) of cognac for a 14-16 oz. goblet, so an ounce or so to the five ounces of champagne called for here would be a good fit.)

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Robert Hess
Posted on:
January 9, 2006 at 7:57 am

Mr. Baker actually presents 5 different champagne cocktials in his book “The Gentleman’s Companion: An Exotic Drinking Book”. The lovely and slightly rambling narrative he provides is difficult to paraphrase and still do it justice, but here is an attempt to quickly list those five different drinks. It is the first one on the list, the “Burra-Peg” that you are refering to specifically.

Champagne Cocktail No. 1
“Burra-Peg”
- 2 jiggers well-chilled cognac
- 1 lump sugar doused with Angostura
- Fill up with chilled dry champagne
Garnish with a spiral of green lime peel.

Champagne Cocktail No. 2
“Jimmie Roosevelt”
Fill 16 oz goblet with cracked ice.
Drop a lump of sugar, saturated with angostura, in the middle.
2 jiggers French cognac
Fill with champagne
Float 2 tbsp of green Chartreuse
No garnish

Champagne Cocktail No. 3
“Rio de Janeiro Jocky Club”
In a large tapering champange cocktail glass stack four ice cubes.
Top with lump of sugar saturated with 4 dashes of orange bitters.
Insert 2 sticks of fresh pineapple sticks.
Add a long spiral of green lime peel.
Fill with a medium dry champagne.
Fload 1 tbsp Cointreau.

Champagne Cocktail No. 4
“Imperial Cossack Crusta”
Rub the inside of a champagne cocktail glass with the juice and oils of a green lime, and rub the outside of the glass 1/2 inch below the rim.
Dip the rim in sugar to coat.
Fill the glass with sugar, then dump it out to coat the inside.
Now in a mixing glass combine:
2 dashes orange bitters
1 jigger of cognac
1/2 jigger kummel
Stir with ice, then strain into the prepared champagne glass.
Fill with champagne.
Garnish with a rose petal.

Champagne Cocktail No. 5
“Ile de France Special”
1/2 tsp. fine sugar
1/2 pony of cognac
fill with dry champagne
top with dash of yellow Chartreuse.

There are of course many other types of cocktails which use champagne. The French 75, Kir Royale, Champange Flamingo, Bellini, Old Cuban, Death in the Afternoon, etc. An excellent source for many such variations is “Champagne Cocktails” by Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown.

-Robert

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
lexus amor
Posted on:
April 2, 2006 at 6:34 am

lexus amor
lexus amor