Champagne Cocktail recipe
A sugar cube, bitters, brandy, and Champagne—the original celebratory drink with a little old-world theater.
Method: Build ·
Glass: Flute glass ·
Time: 3 min ·
Difficulty: Beginner ·
Family: The Sidecar Family
Ingredients
- 1 Sugar Cube
- 3 dashes Angostura Bitters
- 1/2 oz Cognac
- 4 oz Brut Champagne or Dry Sparkling Wine
How to make a Champagne Cocktail
- Place the sugar cube in a chilled flute.
- Saturate it with Angostura bitters.
- Add the cognac.
- Slowly top with cold sparkling wine.
- Twist lemon peel over the glass and drop it in.
Garnish
Long lemon twist.
Pro tip
Use a dry sparkling wine. The sugar cube is already adding sweetness and will continue to release bubbles as it dissolves.
History of the Champagne Cocktail
The Champagne Cocktail is one of the first recipes to appear in nineteenth-century cocktail manuals. Its ritual of bitters-soaked sugar bubbling through wine has survived for good reason: it is simple and looks like a celebration.
Flavour profile
Bubbly, Citrus, Spice, Dry
Variations
- French 75 — Shake gin, lemon, and syrup, then top with sparkling wine.
- Seelbach — Add Cointreau and Peychaud's bitters for a Kentucky-born classic.
- Champagne Old Fashioned — Use a richer aged brandy and a large orange peel.
Practise making the Champagne Cocktail in the free Virtual Bar game.