Champagne Cocktail

The Champagne cocktail is quite possibly one of the simplest cocktails you’ll find, but there is still a considerable amount of variability available.  And it’s on that variability that I’ll be playing this week.  In the Joy of Mixology Gary Regan mentions that the first mention of this cocktail is in Jerry Thomas’ How to Mix Drinks, but comments on the strange method.

How to Mix Drinks Or, The Bon-vivant’s Companion, Containing … Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States, Together with the Most Popular British, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish Recipes By Jerry Thomas, Christian Schultz

Certainly this method is beyond strange.  Why on earth would you add Champagne to a shaker with ice and shake?  You’d lose much of the effervescence that the Champagne would bring and as Gary mentions “the shaker would explode when opened.”  In light of that I’m going to use that method, but I am going to stick with the Joy of Mixology for my starting recipe which remains nearly identical to the recipe Thomas lists.

Champagne Cocktail

[Ingredients]

1 Sugar Cube Soaked in Angostura Bitters
5 1/2 oz Chilled Champagne
Lemon Twist

[Directions]

1) Soak the sugar cube in bitters
2) Add the sugar to the Champagne flute
3) Top with Champagne
4) Garnish with the lemon twist