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?
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)
Bubbles and Brown(eye) is also Balls’s ideal first date.
Indeed
Greetings from Detroit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GyVx28R9-s&pp=ygUbaW5zYW5lIGNsb3duIHBvc3NlIG1pcmFjbGVz
So that’s what Guy Fieri does between shooting episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
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!
Pass along a Happy Birthday Brother from me.
Sounds like a weed thing, which…HAPPY BIRTHDAY
So, uhhh… outside of Sharkie suggesting wasting perfectly good champagne and whisky in a cocktail, what else is new?
Just kinda slouching about, being generally appreciative of the hard work that the authors on this site do for our enjoyment…
Yourself?
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?
Bleh, since I can’t edit the post – the bottle says “Krug” (which means Circle in Russian and Bulgarian, but it may be Frenchie?)
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)
Beats me. My wife insists on the cooking wine being cheap.
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).
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)
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?!
The champagne? Meh. Serviceable at best. I sure as shit wouldn’t use Veuve or Dom. The whisky hurt a little more.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Mrs. Horatio just said she needed “a little light” and I almost said “just ask Lowratio” and you assholes have ruined me.
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” 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZlo0c5lWU
Little? He’s 6’3″, 215!