Champagne Cocktail

Champagne, a bitters-soaked sugar cube and a lemon twist: the original sparkling cocktail.

• Champagne120 ml
• Sugar cube1
• Angostura bitters3 dashes
• Lemon peelto garnish

Drop the sugar cube into a flute, soak it with the bitters and slowly top with cold champagne. Express a lemon peel over the surface and drop it in.

CREATED

1855

CREATOR

Unknown

STATE

United States

LOCATION

First recorded in Panama in 1855; popularised in the United States

One of the oldest cocktails, the Champagne Cocktail dates to at least the mid-1800s. Its first written mention is in Robert Tomes’s 1855 Panama in 1855, where a sugar cube, bitters and champagne were served over crushed ice; Jerry Thomas published a recipe in 1862. The modern version adds a measure of cognac and is built in a flute, with the sugar cube generating bubbles as it dissolves.