The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

IMPORTANT NOTE ====
In this episode I am a little cavalier about how I handle the champagne bottle. When opening a champagne bottle it is important to keep your hand/thumb, or better yet, a strong cloth napkin over the cork at all times to avoid any accidents if it happens to shoot out prematurely.

A less important note, is that when I talk about the “fancy” style of cocktails, I of course meant to say “lemon peel”, not “lime peel"…

Drink Boy I love your site. Great information. Great list of drinks! BUT… Please do not take the cage off the top of a champagne bottle and wave it around the room. Once the cage is removed the bottle is a loaded gun.

Z… please note the very first comment I posted here, in which I try to emphisize the importance of being careful with the champagne bottle.

Hey Roberrt, it’s me Chris.  I didn’t know about the BITTERS part…

Chris, Chris, Chris… bitters are an extremely important part of this cocktail. You really need to get out more :->

I noticed you put sugar into this that didn’t appear to dissolve completely. Since you mentioned not doing this in other recipes such as the Old Fashioned, I was curious as to the reasoning behind this.

I really do.  I’m SOMEWHAT remembering our margarita night party

Robert, the Amazon link below is to an out-of-stock reprint of the Jerry Thomas book.  Is there another source of the new hardbound edition you showed us? 

Also, what are your thoughts on a splash (or an ounce) of cognac in this cocktail, a la Charles Baker?  I’ve made them this way with great (social) success. 

I like the way you soak and drop the sugar cube into the glass.  Very elegant!

Nathan,

Yes… the sugar cube won’t fully dissolve using the method I show here. What I use to convince myself that this is fine, is that many sparkling wines are already a tad on the sweet side, and so it doesn’t hurt them to not quite get as much additional sugar added. If you think your drink isn’t quite sweet enough for you, then you can add a little simple syrup to the drink before adding the sugar cube.

-Robert

I think there’s a presentation aspect to the undissolved sugar cube, too.  Bubbles rising from it, etc.  Almost as much as the lemon curl.

Hello my friend (i am feeling about you, like i know you well) Robert, i agree with you about this recipe, two years before i was write the following notes to IBA’s message board about the Champagne cocktail and the cognac:
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from the book: THE STORK CLUB BAR BOOK - LUCIUS BEEBE

<<Champagne Cocktail Gloria Swanson:

1 pint iced champagne, very dry
2 oz. of the best cognac
twist of lemon peel
Served in a tall Tom Collins glass with a cube or two of ice.
Other schools of thought like the same drink in modified containers and with a dash of Angostura Bitters and the author has seen it
Prepared for such exquisite drinkers as the late King of Spain with a teaspoon of strawberry liqueur in place of the sugar and bitters.>>

LUCIUS BEEBE No2
From the book:
The Stork Club Bar Book - Lucius Beebe

page 45, Champagne Cocktail:

1 lamp sugar, saturated with Angostura
Bitters
1 cube of ice
twist of lemon peel
Fill with chilled champagne and serve in champagne glass.

HARRY CRADDOCK
form the book:
THE SAVOY COCKTAIL BOOK - HARRY CRADDOCK - 1930

Put into a wine glass one lump of Sugar, and saturate it with angostura Bitters.
Haνing added to this 1 lump of Ice,
fill the glass with Champagne,
squeeze οn top a piece of lemon peel, and serve with a slice of orange.

Charles H. Baker Jr.
From the book :
JIGGER, BEAKER & GLASS-drinking around the world
-from Charles H. Baker Jr.
Page no 21 to 24

1. Champagne cocktail no 1 -Maharajah’s Burra-Peg - INDIA
Big Goblet-14to16 0z
2 jiggers of chilled Cognac
drop in a lump of sugar doused with angostura
fill up with chilled fine champagne
and garnish with a spiral of green lime.

2. Champagne cocktail no 2 - Jimmy Rousvelt - USA
Big thin gobblet - 16oz
finely cracked ice
in the diametrical center of this frosty mass went a lump of sugar well saturated with Angostura
2 jiggers of good French Cognac
then fill the glass with chilled champagne
finally float carefully 2 tbsp Green Chartreuse.

3. Champagne cocktail no 3 - JOCKY CLUB - Rio de Janeiro
Inside of a large tapering champagne cocktail glass build a tower of 4 ice cubes crown it with a
lump of sugar saturated with 4 dashes of orange bitters,
2 sticks of fresh pinneapple,
a spiral of green lime,
and fill the glass with well chilled champagne medium dry,
float carefully 1 tbsp of Cointreau.

4. Champagne cocktail no 4 - Imperial Cossack Crusta - Far East

Take a large champagne cocktail glass and ice it well,
split a green lime or lemon inside the glass and rimmed with sugra ansd putt the sugar inside the
glass and upside down the glass to emptying ,
add in a bar glass with 3 ice cubes and stirring:
2 dashes of orange bitters,
1 jigger of cognac and 1/2 that of kummel.
Empty this into goblet, fill with chilled dry champagne.

5. Champagne cocktail no 5 – Ile de France Special

Into a large champagne cocktail glass put a half tbsp sugar,
a half pony good cognac,
fill with very cold dry champagne
and top of with a dash or two yellow Chartreuse.
Suggestion : two dashes of any good bitters would help tone the inner man.
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Dimitris Zappas

Classic and Flair bar instructor,
Bartendix,
Board member and Chairman for Flairtending of Hellenic Barmen Association, member of International Bartenders Association.

Chers mr. Hess!

Congratulations for your didactic labour.

It is a pleasure to me to say that here you have a bunch of fans (my friends and myself), and also very interested students.

Thank you very very much for the video lessons professor… our parties improved very much with them

If you come back to Barcelona soon, be sure i will show you the cocktail scen in here (if you want), and surely i will invite you to a terrific “old fashioned” at the boadas

truly yours
Ivan R.S.

Another fantastic episode, Robert.  I’m curious as to your thoughts and experience with dealing with champagne “wounded soldiers” (opened but not entirely consumed bottles).  Do recorkers really help all that much?  And what about that spoon in the bottleneck trick?

I feel like a fool after just watching your most recent episode in which you address this very question.  Apparently you somehow knew my question in advance.  Cheers, Robert.

:->

Of course the best solution is to never have any leftovers!!! :->

Just a quick question: When did cubed sugar come into vogue?  It seems to me that Jerry Thomas would have used loaf sugar.