Chapter Three: Sparkling Personalities

There are many more drinks that are shaken and fizzed in one way or another.

Bellini

The Italian summertime classic from Harry’s Bar in Venice. They have the advantage of being able to procure white peach puree but a well-known and benign cheat is to slip in a spoonful of Chambord to enrich the rather two-dimensional peach puree offered by most stores.

1 1/2 ounces white peach puree
(For 1 qt. of peach puree add 4 ounces of simple syrup and couple of dashes of Grenadine for color)
4 ounces Champagne

Put peach puree in bottom of mixing glass, no ice. Slowly pour Champagne while gently stirring, so as not to lose the effervescence. Strain into a Champagne flute. As with the spoonful of Chambord above, you can also float a half ounce of Marie Brizard Peach on top of each drink. Note: For a group, use a 32-46 oz. pitcher and a long bar spoon. Add 8 ounces of puree to the bottom of the pitcher filled half way with ice and slowly pour the Champagne while dragging the puree up the side with a spoon, to mix …be gentle to retain the bubbles in the champagne.

Elks Club Fizz

Not sure how many members of the B.P.O.E. (that’s Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, for you non-joiners) still sink these, but it’s certainly no hardship to do so.

1 ounce straight rye whiskey
1 ounce ruby port
Generous 1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar
White of 1 egg
To finish: 1 chunk fresh pineapple

Shake and strain into a chilled highball glass. Garnish with pineapple, however you can get it in the glass.

Gansevoort Fizz

Skye—the lobster-shaped piece of rock and heather where Drambuie got its start—is an island, and so is Jamaica. Beyond that, they don’t have much in common. Other than this drink, that is, which was created for Manhattan’s 5 Ninth restaurant and bar, located at 5 Ninth Avenue, in the once-infamous, now merely famous Meatpacking District.

2 ounces Appleton V/X rum
1 ounce Drambuie
1 ounce lemon juice
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
To finish: 2 to 3 ounces chilled fizz water

Shake well; strain into a chilled highball glass and top off with fizzy water.

White Star Imperial Daisy

Created for New York’s 5 Ninth in honor of the posh White Star Line, whose ships used to dock at Pier 54, not two hundred yards from the restaurant. (Of course, the Titanic was one of theirs, so be warned.) Moët White Star champagne, with which the drink is finished, was created especially for the line. The arcane rules of drink nomenclature dictate that any drink topped off with champagne instead of fizz water is entitled to use “imperial” in its name.

2 ounces VSOP armagnac or cognac
1/2 ounce Gilka kümmel liqueur
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1 teaspoon rich simple syrup (see page 00)
To finish: 1 to 2 ounces chilled Moët White Star champagne

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; top off with champagne.

Mainbrace

In eighteenth-century England, the riffraff drank gin, and the gents drank Rum Punch. In Queen Victoria’s Navy, they flipped it around. The officers drank gin, and the men drank rum—except for the teetotalers and the hungover, who drank soda water. Everybody, however, drank preserved lime juice. This twist on the venerable Gimlet covers pretty much the whole spectrum.

2 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce Rose’s lime juice cordial
(optional: 2 dashes Angostura bitters)
To finish: 1 ounce chilled fizz water
1 teaspoon full-bodied, high-proof dark rum

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; add the fizzy water and float the rum on top.

Harvard

An elegant variation on the Daisy that dispenses with the lemon juice, this recipe can be found in George J. Kappeler’s seminal 1895 treatise, Modern American Drinks. He didn’t go to Harvard as far as we know, but things would’ve been a good deal more jolly around the Yard if he had.

1 1/2 ounces cognac
1 1/2 ounce red vermouth
3 dashes Angostura bitters
To finish: chilled fizz water
Lemon peel

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; top off with fizzy water and twist lemon peel over the top.

B2C2

No, it’s not made by fusing two atoms of boron with two of carbon. This formula was—no kidding—created by American intelligence officers during the waning days of World War II in order to make most efficient use of the stocks of looted French luxury goods they liberated from the retreating Germans. It’s a doozy. The name comes from the four ingredients. The ice is a modern innovation. A word to the wise: this drink is built to military specifications and has few safety devices built in.

1 ounce brandy (use a VSOP cognac)
1 ounce Bénédictine
1 ounce Cointreau
To finish: 2 to 3 ounces chilled brut champagne

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; top off with champagne.

Bellini

Ryan Demonstrates How To Make a Bellini.

Bellini
Make peach puree by blending fresh peaches with sugar
Mix 2 to 1 ratio of Prosecco with Peach Puree
(1 Bottle of Prosecco and 10oz of Peach Puree)
When mixing, slowly mix the Prosecco into the puree
After serving, top each drink with 1/4 oz Cognac

Silver Fizz

Ryan Demonstrates How To Make a Silver Fizz.

Silver Fizz
In mixing glass;
Strain 1 egg white
Add 3/4 oz Lemon juice
3/4 oz simple syrup
1.5 oz London Dry Gin
Dry shake
Add ice
shake the hell out of it for 30 seconds
Strain into collins glass with no ice
Top off with club soda
Test your drink. If a straw stands straight up in the drink,
you have succeeded and may move onto the next cocktail

French 75

Ryan Demonstrates How To Make a French 75.

French 75
In mixing glass add;
Coat inside of glass with Absinthe
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup
1.5 oz London Dry Gin
Add ice and shake
Strain into collins glass over ice
Top off with dry sparkling wine
Garnish with lemon twist

Recipes reproduced from “Killer Cocktails” by David Wondrich