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Four Ways to Enjoy Champagne This Holliday Season

15 December 2016

Lois Young

The holidays are a great time to enjoy champagne. You will probably be stocking up for New Years, so you will have bottles on hand. Take this opportunity to enjoy the Champagne leading up to and after New Years. It doesn't have to be a drink you enjoy once a year. With that said, this article is going to list some different champagne cocktails you can enjoy. You might like to try some of the many cool ways this famous French sparkling wine can be enjoyed.

Mimosa

This is a classic champagne cocktail that is made with orange juice. It's perfect with breakfast or brunch. It is made by mixing champagne with an equal amount of orange juice. While you could use fresh squeezed orange juice, it's often served using pulp free orange juice to make a cleaner, crisper juice. It can be garnished with an orange wedge, but is also served unadorned. It is never served with ice, just chilled juice and cold champagne.

Black Velvet

This cocktail is great for beer lovers who also love champagne. Like the mimosa, the drink is a 50/50 mix. It's half champagne and half stout, in this case. The stout floats to the top and you have a beautiful looking drink. It can either be served in a beer glass (normally a pilsner, not a stout glass even thou the beer used is stout) or a champagne glass. The reason the beer glass used is a pilsner and not a stout glass is that a pilsner has a tapered shape which is perfect for the effervescent quality of the champagne. When creating the drink, you can use any stout, but it does need to be a stout; you want the dark black color that stouts have, otherwise the drink won't live up to it's name.

Champagne Cocktail

This is one of the fancier cocktails, in that in involves a bunch of different ingredients. Of course, champagne is an ingredient. The other ingredients are sugar, bitters, and brandy. It's garnished with a sweet, maraschino cherry. Even though it has brandy in it, it's a small ratio (9 to 1, in favor of Champagne) so it's not too alcohol heavy. The brandy just gives it a nice kick. The cocktail is served in a regular champagne flute.

Bellini

This cocktail is technically made with Prosecco, not Champagne. Prosecco is an Italian style of sparkling whine. It is very similar to champagne, so you could make a Bellini using champagne. The cocktail is made using sparking white (prosecco or champagne) and mixing it with peach puree. You can add peach nectar, but you should really get canned peaches and blend them up for the full effect.

For more drink ideas, contact companies like JJ Buckley Fine Wines.

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