Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Bubbles and Brown

Good morning and Happy Friday. This week I’m sticking with the champagne theme as somehow I’ve allowed a bottle to go open and unused in my fridge. After testing it’s fizziness factor and it having passed, I decided to finish up the bottle and go with a champagne drink again. I grabbed my Paris Cocktail book and went looking for champagne drinks. What better book to consult than a French cocktail book right?

Posting here because I forgot to stage the drink with the book

 

The Bastille Celebration caught my eye and decided to make it for this week! Though Had I been thinking, I should have made it last month for the actual holiday but whatever.

Bastille Celebration

2 oz. Bastille Whisky (I used Amorik Classic)

A splash of St. Germain (or other elderflower liqueur)

Champagne

In a chilled champagne glass, combine the whisky and liqueur, and then fill with champagne. Garnish with a strawberry or raspberry

I really like the look of this drink already. The  bright red strawberry is a great contrast from the dark gold champagne and whiskey base.

Unsurprisingly, I get no aroma here. Champagne doesn’t bring much to the party, but what it does do is completely cover any kind of whiskey aromas that might have attempted to come through.

The whiskey/champagne combination is rather interesting. It has an overwhelming dryness to it from the champagne topper. The whiskey gets mostly lost sadly. Though I’m using an older whiskey that I wrote about for one of my first posts here oddly enough. So while not the specific whiskey called, for it’s a single malt whiskey from France, so it is the closest I was gonna get when making this. I’m wondering if the “splash” (about half a barspoon) of elderflower wasn’t enough to take the dryness off and allow the whiskey to shine through. I’d try this again, but I need to re-supply my Amorik stock before I go making more cocktails with it. Thankfully, it appears to be available domestically, so I just need to track down a bottle. I can pick up some of the flavors from the whiskey in the slight aftertaste this leaves, but none of that signature whiskey mouth feel and warmth you’d associate with a whiskey based drink.

So the book mentions that this is a drink for someone that “doesn’t know they like whiskey…yet” I’m inclined to agree on that perspective. I’m a seasoned whiskey drinker and I’m reviewing this drink from that position. However, if someone doesn’t like whiskey, I think they would very much enjoy this more than I am. Again, not to say that this is a bad drink that I’m not going to finish. It isn’t, and I am; but I’m not sure I would use a (for me) rare bottle of French whiskey on a champagne cocktail. Though I do give this creativity points for utilizing champagne in a way that I never really would have thought. Until last week, I would have used champagne in French 75s, Champagne cocktails, and mimosas (other than drinking straight obviously) but this is a new way to incorporate this underutilized ingredient.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)

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Sharkbait
Sharkbait has not actually been bitten by a shark, but has told people in bars that he was for free drinks. Married to a Giants fan, he enjoys whisk(e)y, cooking, the Rangers, and the Patriots.
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BrettFavresColonoscopy

Bubbles and Brown(eye) is also Balls’s ideal first date.

Last edited 1 year ago by BrettFavresColonoscopy
ballsofsteelandfury

Indeed

Brick Meathook

Greetings from Detroit:

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LemonJello

So that’s what Guy Fieri does between shooting episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Gumbygirl

Today is Gumby’s birthday. He’s 63, which is the number he had in high school football. I don’t know why that struck us as funny, but we’ve been giggling about it so hard our ribs hurt. Welcome glorious September!

2Pack

Pass along a Happy Birthday Brother from me.

SonOfSpam

Sounds like a weed thing, which…HAPPY BIRTHDAY

bk109

So, uhhh… outside of Sharkie suggesting wasting perfectly good champagne and whisky in a cocktail, what else is new?

BeefReeferLives

Just kinda slouching about, being generally appreciative of the hard work that the authors on this site do for our enjoyment…

Yourself?

bk109

Cooking (steak in champagne + some bits and ends) and browsing the internet.

Speaking of cooking with champagne – uhh, a question for the drinkers with a bit broader knowledge (and taste) than me – any idea why my wife would go into full “I can’t even”-mode, just because I opened some cheap-ass sparkling wine that no one’s ever heard of to cook?

bk109

Bleh, since I can’t edit the post – the bottle says “Krug” (which means Circle in Russian and Bulgarian, but it may be Frenchie?)

BeefReeferLives

Yeah, Krug is pretty cheap stuff, so great to cook with. (Interesting, never heard of cooking steak with champers, always thought it was red wine for red meat.)

(using cheap champagne to make fondue with works great)

2Pack

Beats me. My wife insists on the cooking wine being cheap.

bk109

Same, hence why I grabbed this bottle as I doubt work would be putting the good stuff in gift baskets. I may call my mother in law to ask her, since she’s a bit of a wine snob (and would be more useful than Google’s been of late).

BeefReeferLives

yeah, i’ve always heard that as long as the wine isn’t obviously off (corked, or otherwise spoiled) it’s fine to cook with. (& that the really good stuff is wasted in cooking)

bk109

Yep, hence why I thought I was getting something cheap from the rack (since I didn’t want to go to shop to grab some of Lidl/Aldi/Tesco’s “””finest””” . Unfortunately, now I know why wife’s irked – this shite is like a grand online (’98) and for the life of me, I’m not sure I can taste a serious difference between it and the actual cheap stuff. Plus, in my defence… WHO THE FUCK PUTS AN EXPENSIVE BOTTLE IN A GIFT BASKET?!

Horatio Cornblower

I don’t think Sharkbait suggested it so much as gave us a recipe that might be of interest. In this instance, as in so many, many, MANY, other instances, the party at fault is the French.

BeefReeferLives

Never would have thought of mixing whiskey and champers…

Also never would have thought of infusing watermelon rind in vodka, but The Good Mrs. Reefer did at the beginning of August. (used a carrot peeler to take the green outside off of the rind)

Just gave it a little taste last night. YUM. Dry and cool like a cucumber infusion, but with a trace of watermelon.

Horatio Cornblower

I got in late last night, (Rentscheler Field Parking! Brought to you by Gillette Stadium!), so here’s my takeaway on UConn football based on one game:

  1. The UConn QB runs very well, and probably needs to give the offensive line’s approach to pass blocking, which is sort of touch and go, in that they touch the rushing defensive player and then let them go.
  2. The coaching staff made some debatable decisions, like scoring on the opening drive largely on the QB’s running, then never having him run again.
  3. The defense overpursues, doesn’t contain, and can’t tackle. Other than that they seem fine, except for those rare instances when NC State threw the ball more than 15 yards, when it looks like the secondary doesn’t understand pass interference rules.
  4. The QB mentioned above has absolutely no touch/accuracy on deep passes, and by “deep passes” I mean “anything to the sidelines or anything more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage.”
  5. I don’t know if NC State is any good, because UConn seems pretty bad, but they were at least smart enough to realize UConn couldn’t figure out how to stop a running game and simply never did anything else.
  6. Live football games are terrible. So much standing around waiting for TV to come back from a commercial break.

I think UConn fandom’s enthusiasm based on last year’s 6 wins and Boca Raton Bowl beatdown is in for a serious reality check this year. Basketball season starts soon.

2Pack

Being a fan is tough sometimes.
But it’s certainly better with your eyes wide open. Low expectations, after a fine initial assessment like this one, deadens the pain.

Horatio Cornblower

Mrs. Horatio just said she needed “a little light” and I almost said “just ask Lowratio” and you assholes have ruined me.

bk109

Pfft, at least that’s relatively PG and socially acceptable, unlike (thanks to EFAP’s influence) accidentally referring to “The Force” as “The Big Ghey” 😀

Gumbygirl

Little? He’s 6’3″, 215!