4-ingredient Classic Champagne Cocktail recipe

Bubbles make any party festive! This 4-ingredient Classic Champagne Cocktail recipe can be ready in minutes and is guaranteed to make any occasion special.

 

It's bubbly season!

Too often champagne or sparkling wine only makes an appearance on New Year's Eve. But this Classic Champagne Cocktail is simple, easy to make and always party-ready.

Hosting a gift exchange this year? Maybe a festive happy hour with the neighbors? Try offering your guests something a little unique - a 4-ingredient Classic Champagne Cocktail.

Classic Champagne Cocktail ingredients

If you’re a history buff, you can trace the origins of the Classic Champagne Cocktail to England in the 1800s. The original iteration of the Cocktail included a smidge of cognac, but as the recipe has evolved over the years, it has often faded from recipes.

Today you will likely find Champagne cocktails with four ingredients:

• Sparkling wine
• Sugar cube (You can use brown or white sugar cubes)
• Bitters
• Strip of lemon or orange peel 

What type of sparkling wine do I use for a Champagne cocktail?

You can find quality sparkling wines made from all over the world. The most popular varieties tend to originate in France, Spain, Italy and the United States. And they all have different names depending on where they are produced:

• The United States produces a majority of its sparkling wines in California and Washington,
• Spain’s sparkling wine is known as Cava,
• You’ll find Italy’s sparkling wine labeled as Prosecco,
• And sparkling wine is only called Champagne if it’s produced in the Champagne region of France. If it’s made in other part of France, it’s called Crémant.

Types of sparkling wine

Just like wine, you can find dry and sweet sparkling wines and everything in between. Most sparkling wine cocktails are best with dry bubbles because they often add sweet ingredients, like the bitters-laced sugar cube in this Classic Champagne Cocktail.

Not sure how to tell if a bottle of bubbly is dry or sweet? Look for these classifications on the bottles. They go in order from driest (extra brut) to sweetest (doux):

Extra Brut (driest)
Brut
Extra Dry Sec
Demi-Sec
Doux (sweetest)

A reasonably-priced brut (dry) sparkling wine makes this cocktail shine, so skip the sweeter versions of bubbles out there, especially since you are adding a sugar cube to this drink.

What type of glass do I use for champagne cocktails?

Some wine experts claim that champagne flutes actually do a disservice to the wine because they are skinny and don’t allow you to swirl the wine to expose it to air and bring out its best flavors. They claim one of the best glasses for achieving the optimal flavor from your sparkling wine is actually a tulip-shaped wine glass.

OK, that’s good to know if you have an expensive cellar of vintage bubbly bottles. But on average, most people only drink sparkling wine a handful of times every year, so any moderately priced bottle of sparkling wine works perfectly well in traditional champagne flutes.

I like using flutes for this champagne cocktail for the exact reason that wine experts don’t like it: because they ARE skinny and they expose the wine to as much air. The result is the bubbles and carbonation last longer. Add a sugar cube to the drink and you get extra bubble action as it reacts with the sparkling wine.

While you can certainly use stemless champagne flutes, I prefer ones with at least a little bit of stem. Since there is no ice in the cocktail, you want your drink to stay chilled as long as possible. Holding the glass by the stem versus the flute directly ensures you are not transferring body heat to the glass.

Ready to give this drink a go? Follow these tips to make the BEST Classic Champagne Cocktail:

1. Make sure your sparkling wine is well-chilled. Sparkling wine tastes best when it is cold.
2. Use chilled flutes, if possible, to keep your cocktails cool for a bit longer.
3. You do add sugar to this drink, but that doesn't make up for bad wine, so don't cheap out on your wine purchase. A trusted liquor store will be able to point you in the direction of a $15-20 bottle of brut sparkling wine that will work well with this cocktail. One of my faves is Gloria Ferrer Brut. 
4. The easiest way to combine the sugar cube and bitters is to place a sugar cube on a spoon, sprinkle the bitters over the cube and then use the spoon to slide the cube into the flute. A bar spoon works really well for this because of its long handle. 
5. Alternately, you can also pop the cube straight into the flute and shake the bitters over the top of it. This method results in a little messier presentation because the bitters tend to spray all over the sides of the flute when you try to shake them out of the bottle.
6. Pour small amounts of wine into the glass at a time, or you will end up with a foamy mess all over the counter. After the foam has subsided, continue pouring small amounts until the glass is full.
7. Garnish with a strip of lemon zest or other citrus fruit for a bit of brightness. (Tip: These peelers are my favorite. Super sharp, easy to handle and inexpensive, too!) 

Making a citrus twist

I actually had to google how to make a citrus twist a few times before I found a method I like, but this one seems to work the most consistently:

1. Cut a thin slice of lemon (or orange).
2. Carve out the interior fruit, leaving the rind and a just a bit of the pith intact.
3. Make a small cut in the rind so it is no longer a circle and you have one long piece of rind. At this point you can trim the size of the rind to make a smaller twist or leave it long for a larger twist.
4. Tightly twirl the rind around your finger, a pen or even a chopstick and hold together for a few seconds to help the rind retain its shape.

That's it, folks. This party-ready Classic Champagne Cocktail is simple for the host to prepare and luxurious for the guest to receive. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

More sparkling wine cocktails

The variety of cocktails made with sparkling wine means you can enjoy bubbles at nearly any occasion from morning until night. Here are some of our favorites. 

1. Mimosas rule the brunch circuit, and setting up a DIY Mimosa Bar is an ideal way for guests to help themselves to late morning libations.

If you feel like serving a signature brunch cocktail, you can't go wrong with either a Mexican Mimosa or a Sparkling Pomegranate Mimosa. Looking for something a little more unique? Our Ginger Grapefruit Prosecco Cocktail is always a crowd-pleaser. 

2. Sure, you can just drink a plain glass of sparkling wine during happy hour, but when it mixes well with so many spirits, the sky is really the limit for sparkling wine happy hour cocktails. 

If you're a bourbon lover, you have to try these Bourbon Aperol Cocktails that are finished with just a splash of bubbles to keep them from being too heavy. Rum fans will love these Pomegranate Prosecco Cocktails and their drop dead gorgeous color. And even the classics get a flavor boost from elderflower liqueur in these bubbly Elderflower French 75 cocktails. 

Find all of our bubbly cocktail recipes HERE! 

This post was first published on December 30, 2015.

It’s easy to add a dash of festivity to any party with these easy, 4-ingredient Classic Champagne Cocktails! This cocktail recipe can be made in just a few minutes and will instantly make any occasion special.