16 Champagne Cocktails for Celebrating Anything (But Especially New Year's Eve)
Serve up a champagne-and-something to toast all the victories, big or small.
Something tells us that you are scheming about New Year's Eve right now. You're plotting out a damn good time. And you want to know if there's something you can do with champagne besides drink it by the fluteful. The answer is yes: There is quite a lot you can do with champagne besides the obvious. Such as, craft up a champagne cocktail that fits the mood.
Speaking of mood. If the '19 to '20 transition was marked by ringing enthusiasm for a new Roaring Twenties, and the '20 to '21 transition was marked by exhausted nihilism (more like the Sputtering Twenties, huh), then we hope that the '21 to '22 transition falls somewhere in the middle. A hint of earnest eagerness. A dose of skepticism. Manageable expectations. And we hope that at midnight, you're toasting with people you love.
The following 16 champagne cocktail recipes—or sparkling wine recipes; we're not sticklers to the rules—will help you celebrate the victories big and small. Starting a new year is certainly a win, but so is meeting up with your mom for brunch or making bubbly cocktails for a game night with friends. There's no occasion too small for a champagne-and-something. When in doubt, use a dry brut champagne. And point the cork away from your loved ones' faces.
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Champagne Cocktail
Flutes of champagne are passed out by the armful on New Year’s Eve, but a more interesting flute is one with the addition of aromatic bitters and a sugar cube. This champagne cocktail—The Champagne Cocktail—twists the traditional just the right amount.
Ingredients
• 1 sugar cube
• 2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
• brut champagne
Directions
Place a sugar cube in a chilled champagne flute, lash it with 2 or 3 dashes of bitters, fill the glass with brut champagne, and squeeze a lemon twist on top.
Champagne Punch
Satiate an entire party with this "everything but the kitchen sink" punch. It has fruit, but it isn't overly fruity. It sparkles. Frankly, it's festive as hell.
Ingredients
• 1 bottle brut champagne
• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1 1/2 oz. Cointreau
• 1 liter club soda
• 8 strawberries
• 1 orange rind
• 1 orange, sliced with rind
• 1 pineapple, sliced
• fresh mint
Directions
Put strawberries into a large punch bowl and crush into small pieces. Add ice to punch bowl and pour in champagne, brandy, Cointreau, and club soda. Stir. Garnish with orange rinds, sliced orange, sliced pineapple, and plenty of fresh mint.
Whiskey Spritz
This spritz takes some heady flavors—stone fruit, Japanese whisky, sparkling wine—and combines them into a whiskey cocktail that feels featherlight.
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 oz. Suntory Whisky Toki
• 1 3/4 oz. Tempus Fugit Kina L'Aéro D'Or Aperitif
• 1 1/2 tsp. apricot brandy
• 1 1/2 oz. sparkling wine
• 1 1/2 oz. club soda
Directions
Combine whisky and aperitif in a large wine glass. Add 2 large ice cubes, cracked, then stir. Add apricot brandy and more cracked ice, almost to the top. Add sparkling wine and club soda, then stir again. Garnish with expressed and rolled grapefruit peel and half a strawberry.
Aperol Spritz
The Aperol Spritz carries summer, though not a soul will know if you drink it off-season. It is ubiquitous, and oddly enough, contentious.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. Aperol
• 3 oz. prosecco
• 2 oz. (or a splash, or a top off) club soda
• orange slices
Directions
Build Aperol, prosecco, and club soda in a wine glass over ice. Garnish with fresh orange slices in the glass.
French 75
Though it emanates an effervescent glow, a French 75 is more potent than a cannon blast, courtesy of gin and champagne combined. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s what it was named for.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. London dry gin
• 1 tsp. superfine sugar
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 5 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Shake gin, lemon juice, and sugar well with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker. Strain into a glass half-full with ice, then top off with champagne.
Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon
Its reputation precedes it. (We all watched the Ken Burns documentary on PBS.)
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 oz. absinthe
• 4 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Pour absinthe into a champagne flute and add iced brut champagne until it clouds up (at least 4 ounces).
Air Mail
This cocktail is an upper—what wouldn’t be, given honey, lime, golden rum, and champagne?
Ingredients
• 2 oz. golden rum
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1 tsp. honey
• 5 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Mix rum, lime juice, and honey thoroughly with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker, then pour unstrained into a Collins glass. Fill with champagne. (We recommend using Puerto Rican rum.)
Apple Cider Mimosa
For when you want to day drink and wear a brushed flannel button-down at the same time.
Ingredients
• 4 oz. brut champagne
• 2 oz. all-natural apple cider
• 1 oz. cinnamon whiskey
• 1 slice of apple, for garnish
Directions
Mix cider and cinnamon whiskey in a champagne flute. Top with champagne, then stir lightly until incorporated. Garnish with an apple slice.
Mimosa
Boozy, bottomless, brunch. That’s the Mimosa. Grand Marnier adds a backbone to this otherwise-basic morning cocktail.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. orange juice
• 4 oz. brut champagne
• 1 tsp. Grand Marnier (optional)
Directions
Fill champagne flute 1/3 full of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Top up with brut champagne, then add Grand Marnier.
Blushing Mimosa
A tropical take on the Mimosa, with pineapple and grenadine, cracks through a winter chill.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. pineapple juice
• 2 tbs. grenadine
• brut champagne
Directions
Fill a champagne flute 2/3 full of the juice mixture. Top with champagne, then add grenadine.
B2C2
Room-temperature champagne? Indeed. Drink this cocktail to make full use of the bar cart, with flavors bitter, herbal, and sweet.
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1 1/2 oz. Bénédictine
• 1 1/2 oz. Cointreau
• 4-6 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Combine the brandy, Bénédictine, and Cointreau in an old-fashioned glass. Top off with room-temperature brut champagne.
Atomic Cocktail
This is a cocktail built to withstand an atom-splitting bomb. Handle with immense care.
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1 tsp. sherry
• 1 1/2 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Stir the vodka, brandy, and sherry well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add brut champagne.
Grand Royal
That Grand Marnier you dashed into your Mimosa? Use it again at night to dress up champagne—especially if that champagne isn’t exactly top-shelf stuff.
Ingredients
• 3/4 parts Grand Marnier
• 4 parts champagne
Directions
Add Grand Marnier to a champagne flute, then top with champagne. Garnish with an orange twirl.
Barbotage
Run that Grand Royal out a mile further with a splash of cognac.
Ingredients
• 1/2 oz. cognac
• 1 tsp. Grand Marnier
• 4 oz. brut champagne
Directions
Pour cognac (or another brandy) and Grand Marnier into a champagne flute. Top up with brut champagne.
Bellini
Peach and prosecco are a treat. A damn delight, even.
Ingredients
• 2 parts Prosecco
• 1 part fresh white peach purée
Directions
Pour Prosecco into a champagne glass. Top with peach purée.
Black Velvet
Think of a Black Velvet like a Coke float for the of-drinking-age crowd. Some foam, some fizz.
Ingredients
• Guinness stout
• brut champagne
Directions
Half-fill a Collins glass with stout and top up slowly with champagne. Stir gently with glass or plastic rod.
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