Champagne Cocktails: Elysee Palace and Lord Baltimore's Cup

 

Special occasions call for impressive champagne cocktails. A good champagne cocktail is balanced, not overly sweet or spicy; it should be elegant, colorful, effervescent and most of all, strong. Both of these cocktail achieve this in very different ways. The quintessentially French Elysee Palace is a blushing, bubbling flute glass with rich berry flavors and cognac. Lord Baltamore, the English governor of the Maryland colony, is a chunky chalice full of manly rye and bitters. 

The nice thing about offering a champagne cocktail during a party is that it makes use of the dry sparkling wine that is already open and being passed around. The rest of the recipes are not complicated and really only amount to sprinkling in a few ingredients to alter the champagne. 

Here are the recipes to these two cocktails. As usual, feel free to make substitutions when it comes to syrups, liqueurs and sparkling wine as needed to pull them off.

For instance, I used sparkling wine that is as dry as Champagne--Californian, not Italian, which runs the risk of being too sweet. I made my own raspberry syrup out of brandy, sugar, and fresh raspberries rather than buy a bottle of Chambord. And because I don't have framboise, (which does have a little fizz of its own) I fell back on strawberry-infused rum, hoping that the sparkling wine would take up the slack of the bubbles. 

        Elysee Palace

• 1 oz. cognac (Martel single distillery used)
• 1/2 oz. raspberry liqueur (homemade raspberry brandy used)
• 1/2 tsp. framboise (homemade strawberry liqueur used)
• brut champagne  

Combine cognac and raspberry liqueur in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a champagne flute and top with brut champagne.

         Lord Baltimore's Cup

• 1/2 oz. sugar syrup to taste  
• 1 oz. rye (Rittenhouse)
  
• brut champagne
• several dashes Angostura bitters
• several dashes Pernod (Ricard used)

Combine rye, sugar and bitters in a wine goblet. Add ice cubes (I prefer cracked ice for drinks with floats) and stir. Float Pernod (or pastis like Ricard) on top.

Albermarle Fizz

So I am running out of gin, and it is only halfway through the summer! What am I to do? For this gin fizz drink, I was forced to chose my select bottle of Bombay Sapphire East, and I'm not sure the peppercorn and lemongrass infusion did justice to my homemade framboise and raspberry syrup. But then, it was complex--more so than if I had made the drink with a substandard gin.

Fresh raspberry and raspberry flavor is what this cocktail is all about. The recipe doesn't call for berry garnish, but it doesn't hurt.

• 2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. raspberry syrup
• dash of framboise
• club soda

Combine gin, lemon juice, framboise and syrup in a Collins glass full of ice. Top with soda. Garnish at will.

Royal Matador

I'm kind of obsessed with pineapple shell drinks right now. For one thing, it is amazingly easy to core a pineapple and freeze the shell. Then just pull it out and fill it with a drink that will stay cold in an icy pineapple.

This time I was following the recipe and made a saw-toothed bowl deep enough for two drinks--perfect for sharing. The word "royal" in a drink name usually denotes the use of pineapple or Chambord or both. Anyway, I get the idea that anytime someone goes all out and makes a pineapple shell or spear cocktail. It's the royal treatment!

• 4 oz. gold tequila
• 1 1/2 oz. Framboise (homemade raspberry syrup + vodka used but Chambord is a good standard)
• 1 tbsp amaretto
• 2 oz. lime juice
• fruit of one whole ripe pineapple

Cut off the top of a pineapple and save the top. Scoop out the pineapple, being careful not to damage the shell, and liquefy the chunks in the blender. Strain the pineapple juice from the pulp and put the juice back in the blender with remaining ingredients. Blend with ice until smooth and pour into the pineapple shell. Put the top back on and serve with two straws. (Garnish with whatever floats your boat.)