Champagne cocktails for adding extra sparkle to the season
Featuring bar recommendations and the best local bottles to share with your real friends over the holidays
This time of year leans heavily into all things sparkly—twinkling lights, glittering tinsel and dazzling fireworks. The festive gilding extends to drinks, and Charlemagne, Café Renée’s moody second-floor speakeasy on Portland Street, understands the assignment. Here, bartenders use the French sparkling in more than one menu item, including the very literally named Champagne Cocktail, a recipe that dates back to 1862 and combines sugar, bitters, cognac and champagne. Order one and the bottle is popped and poured tableside. “The acid in the champagne breaks down the sugar, resulting in an intense bubbling effect,” says beverage director Angus Edmundson.
Related: The city’s trendiest cocktails are delicious new twists on retro recipes
For something less boozy but still big on bubbles, the Gilded Rose is a low-octane, high-flavour highball made with rose-infused fino sherry, house-made gentian, Strega (a herbal Italian liqueur), agave and verjus (a highly acidic juice made with unripened wine grapes). And of course, it’s finished with a fizzy topper of champers. “People are careful with how they spend their money post-Covid. When they do splurge, they want elements of indulgence and luxury,” says Edmundson. “Champagne is just that.”
Three of the best Ontario-made sparklers
Hinterland’s Blanc de Noirs 2020 Method Traditional Hinterland does one thing very well: bubbles. The Blanc de Noir, made with PEC-grown pinot noir, is rich, rosy and a third of the price of real champagne. $39.95, hinterlandwine.com
Last House Vineyard’s Joie de Vivre Blanc de Blanc This Blanc de Blanc from a small-but-mighty PEC winery spends a whopping two and a half years aging on the lees before it’s released, giving it oodles of body, oomph and elegance. $48, lasthousevineyard.ca
Stratus Blanc de Blancs 2016 Made with Niagara-on-the-Lake-grown grapes, this bubbly has a tingling minerality that will match up with everything on the holiday table, from caviar to kung pao chicken. $75, stratuswines.com
More bubbles
Bar Banane This Ossington hotspot swaps standard sparkling wine with champagne to add electricity to its Sonic the Hedgehog highball.
Clockwork The signature drink at the Royal York’s lobby bar, Meet Me at the Clock, is a French 75 (gin, lemon, champagne, sugar, bitters) with a twist: absinthe and frozen rosé.
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Kate Dingwall is a writer, author and photographer covering spirits, business, culture, fashion and travel. By night, she’s a working sommelier. She has worked with Flare, Food & Wine, Wine Enthusiast, Maxim, People, Southern Living, Rolling Stone, Eater, Elle, Toronto Life and the Toronto Star, among other publications. She frequently appears on both CTV and NPR, has co-authored a book on gin, judges Food & Wine’s Tastemakers and has strong opinions on the city’s best martini.
