Champagne

3 New Champagne Cocktails to Make for New Year's Eve

December 31, 2015

Quick! Say the first two words that come to mind when you think of New Year’s Eve.

Sparkles and bubbles, right? I can think of nothing that is more closely associated with New Year’s Eve celebrations than Champagne.

Photo by James Ransom

I will be the first to say that Champagne is the perfect drink and never gets old. I will never say no to a glass of Champagne, but I will also always say yes to a spritzy sparkling cocktail.

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There’s something extra festive about adding pizzazz to your bubbly, and it’s even more fun if they’re new Champagne cocktails you haven’t heard of before.

Here are the three that I’m making this year:

This cocktail takes the boozy, bright soul of a French 75 and gives it a sophisticated, edgy bitterness with Campari. Because in cocktails, as in life, a splash of Campari makes everything that much better.

Vodka did not become popular in the United States until the invention of the Moscow Mule, and the Moscow Mule didn’t become popular with me until I decided to make it with ginger syrup and Champagne instead of ginger beer.

I find myself not infrequently operating on the principle that if X is good and Y is good, X+Y will probably be pretty good too. This is the type of thinking that brought us the Cronut™ and the pie milkshake, so how wrong could it be?

In this case I put together two of my favorite drinks, the Last Word and Champagne, with great success. You get the sweet-tart-herbal, one-two(three) punch of the Last Word, but lightened with effervescence.

What will be in the glass you raise on New Year's Eve? Tell us in the comments!

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

I like to say I'm a lazy iron chef (I just cook with what I have around), renegade nutritionist, food policy wonk, and inveterate butter and cream enthusiast! My husband and I own a craft distillery in Northern Minnesota called Vikre Distillery (www.vikredistillery.com), where I claimed the title, "arbiter of taste." I also have a doctorate in food policy, for which I studied the changes in diet and health of new immigrants after they come to the United States. I myself am a Norwegian-American dual citizen. So I have a lot of Scandinavian pride, which especially shines through in my cooking on special holidays. Beyond loving all facets of food, I'm a Renaissance woman (translation: bad at focusing), dabbling in a variety of artistic and scientific endeavors.

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