Quick Champagne Cocktails

Madame Lily Bollinger of the champagne-making family is quoted as saying: "I drink champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."

If you can agree with those sentiments, there's sure to be a champagne cocktail here for you!

French 75

• 1½ measures dry gin
• Juice of ½ lemon
• ½ teaspoon icing sugar
• Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the first three ingredients and shake well. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Serve garnished with a strip of lemon peel.

Valencia

• ½ measure apricot brandy
• 1 measure freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the first three ingredients and shake well. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Serve garnished with a strip of orange peel.

Mint Julep is a popular summer drink based on whiskey - traditionally bourbon - and mint. For Champagne Julep a splash of whiskey is optional. Take a chilled highball glass. Place in it two sprigs of mint and a sugar cube. Add a few ice cubes and fill, pouring slowly, with chilled sparkling champagne. Garnish with a fresh strawberry.

Paddy's Cocktail

• 1 measure crème de menthe
• 1 measure whiskey (preferably Irish)
• Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with crushed ice. Add the crème de menthe and whiskey and shake well. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Garnish with a four-leaved clover.

Ritzy Raspberry Revelry

Created at the Hotel Ritz, Paris, this is THE cocktail for Valentine's night! But you have to plan it well in advance!

Pour some vodka into a jug and add a handful of raspberries. Leave to steep for 10 days. Strain.

Pour just over half a measure of the raspberry vodka into a champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Garnish with a petal from a red rose (preferably hand-picked at dawn!)

Ritz Fizz

• ½ measure almond liqueur
• ½ measure Blue Curaçao
• Champagne

Pour the almond liqueur and Curaçao into a chilled champagne flute. Add the lime juice and stir. Top up with chilled champagne, stirring gently.

California Dreaming

• 3 measures pineapple juice
• 3 dashes cherry liqueur such as Kirsch
• 1 dash lemon juice
• Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add the first three ingredients. Shake well, then strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Garnish glass with a chunk of pineapple.

Lady Macbeth

• 1 measure port
• Champagne

Pour champagne into a flute glass. Slowly add the port. Don't stir! Serve garnished with a twist of orange peel.

Goodnight

• 1 sugar cube
• 1 drop Angostura bitters
• 1 splash Campari
• Champagne

Splash a drop of angostura bitters onto a sugar cube. Place it at the bottom of a champagne flute. Top up with champagne and add a splash of campari.

Cranberry Fizz

• 1 measure cranberry juice
• Champagne

Place a couple of ice cubes in a flute glass. Add the cranberry juice. Top up with chilled champagne.

Pick-Me-Up

This drink is believed to have been created in The Ritz Bar in Paris roundabout 1936

• 1 measure cognac
• 3 measures freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 dashes grenadine
• Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the first three ingredients and shake well. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top up with champagne. Serve garnished with a twist of orange peel.

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