I never believed sparkling wine was for special occasions. I drink it with frozen pizza.
Of course, New Year’s Eve is special enough to qualify. So here’s his quartet of sparkling drinks, including those that are effervescent from non-alcoholic sources. There’s a lot of great stuff out there (French 75 with gin or cognac, classic champagne cocktails with bitters-soaked sugar cubes, Hemingway’s absinthe-driven afternoon death), these are the ones I’ve been to That’s it. Make it this holiday season.
have mistaken
This equal three-ingredient marvel is probably the best and easiest sparkling wine drink. I’ve written about this before, but it’s taking me a while now because of the viral TikTok memes. or something i really don’t care. What I do care about is how good this drink, which simply replaces the Negroni gin with sparkling wine, tastes good with a slice of orange or an orange twist.
It was probably invented by accident when a bartender accidentally grabbed a bottle of prosecco instead of gin. The story gave the drink its name, as it means ‘wrong’. Whatever its true origin, the sparkling wine proved to pair very well with the bittersweet mix of Campari and Red His vermouth that make up the remaining two-thirds of the drink.
recipe
1 1/2 ounces Campari
1 1/2 ounces red vermouth
1 1/2 ounces of sparkling wine (Prosecco is traditional, but I prefer Blanc Blanc Brut by Treveli Cellars in Yakima Valley for nearly all cocktail applications)
orange slices or orange twists
Mix all ingredients in a rocks glass with ice. Add an orange slice or twist garnish.
Sbagliato is also easy to use as a punch. Simply pour a bottle of each ingredient into a punch bowl filled with ice. (I like to make ice molds with sliced citrus.)
Hipocrene
Poetry Magazine ordered this drink in 2012 for its 100th anniversary. Created by Brian West, one of the magazine’s former web producers, this drink is enlivened by ginger and citrus and features a chunk of healthy gin to provide the backbone. Its name derives from the name of a sacred spring whose waters gave rise to poetic inspiration, and that one or two of these hippoclens urge the drinker to make bold, if not always cautious, poetic Appropriate in that it is known to imbue spirits.
With that in mind, I offer this toast from the 2000 collection “Tell Me”, taken from poet Kim Addonizio’s “New Year’s Day”. / Bless the rain, and raise my face to it.
recipe
1 ¼ ounces gin
3/4 oz ginger liqueur, such as Domaine de Canton
½ ounce grapefruit juice
¼ ounce lemon juice
1 tablespoon chilled mint tea (brewed at double strength)
2 ounces sparkling wine
2 dashes of grapefruit bitters
Fresh basil for garnish (optional)
Place all ingredients except sparkling wine and basil in an ice-filled mixing glass. Stir for 15-20 seconds. Strain into a glass. Pour in the sparkling wine and stir gently.
American 25
Robert Simonson, drink writer for the New York Times and author of several books, including A History of the Modern Cocktail Revolution (excellent, highly recommended), came up with this himself. . Like Eggnog and Tom and Jerry, it was his attempt at a Christmas drink that would energize rather than bog down drinkers.
A riff on the classic French 75 (basically a gin or cognac sour topped with champagne), Simonson’s drink is based on 100-proof apple brandy accented with peat scotch. It’s a big, bold combination, the kind that a good old cowboy might end up banging against a wall at the start of a bar brawl.
Its name derives from the distinctly American spirit of apple brandy, which predates rye and bourbon as the nation’s oldest spirit. 25 is Christmas, the day this drink was invented. Call me American 31 because I’m stealing it for New Year’s Eve.
recipe
1 ounce apple brandy
½ ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, simmer on stove, then cool)
¼ ounce peat scotch, such as Laphroaig or Aardberg 10 Years Old
4 ounces sparkling wine
lemon peel garnish
Shake all ingredients except sparkling wine and lemon peel in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain through a champagne flute and top with sparkling wine. Twist the lemon zest over the surface of the drink, then drop it.
FPB
I tore my Achilles tendon playing pickleball in June. I have never played pickleball before and will never play it again. I had complications from surgery. Then there were 4 more surgeries. I am still recovering. And I hate pickleballs.
But one fun aspect of having your feet in constant danger and trying to recover is that you need to drink less.You want your body to heal. While I continued to make regular cocktails for people with disabilities, I was constantly inventing non-alcoholic drinks for myself.
Many of them featured tonic water, but because of its bittersweet nature, there’s a way to trick my taste buds into thinking I’m actually having a capital D drink, even though it’s booze-free. , many of them featured citrus because they can be easily paired with tonics.
In this particular formula, we used Cara Cara Orange Juice and lengthened it with both Tonic and Lemon Seltzer. Then I added a drop of rosewater. This is a secret weapon for giving non-alcoholic beverages a dry, complex finish (but not more than one drop, two drops and it starts to taste overwhelmingly perfumey).
recipe
Juice of half a cara cara orange
4 ounces tonic (a good one, such as fever tree)
4 ounces lemon seltzer
1 drop of rose water
garnish of lemon or orange peel
Combine all liquid ingredients in a tall glass and mix over ice. Twist off the citrus peel onto the surface.
Pat Muir was a former staff writer for the Yakima Herald Republic and had a regular On the Bar drinks column from 2014-2020.