Champagne Cocktails Add Pop to Winter Sipping

The official month of romance is upon us, and this year, we suggest you break out the bubbly in the form of a champagne cocktail. At Robust Wine Bar in Webster Groves, owner Stanley Browne offers several bubbly-based drinks – all off the menu – that are guaranteed to make your special someone swoon. Ask for a classic champagne cocktail and you’ll be served a flute with a sugar cube soaked with a few dashes of Angostura bitters. The glass is then filled with Robust’s house champagne, Francois Montand, a blanc de blancs (white grapes only) from the Gascony region of France. The drink evolves both visually (as the bubbly rises to the top, the now amber-hued sugar cube begins to dissolve) and gustatorily (the champagne slowly picks up the acerbic flavor of the bitters, which are held at bay by the sugar). While Robust opts for a brut in its champagne cocktails, South City’s 3500 Winehaus uses the Segura Viudas brut Reserva, a cava, in its Sparkling Cocktail. To prepare this richly colored concoction, 1 ounce of the fairly dense Clear Creek Loganberry Liqueur (made from Oregon loganberries, a blackberry-raspberry hybrid, distilled in fruit brandy) is poured into a flute and topped with bubbly and a fresh raspberry. Adding a base spirit to champagne is another recipe for keeping things fresh and lively. At Benton Park’s Ernesto’s Wine Bar and downtown’s recently opened Rosalita’s Cantina, spirits such as vodka, rum and tequila each work harmoniously with bubbles. The popular house Cosmo at Ernesto’s is a marriage between house-made cranberry-infused vodka and extra-dry Pizzolato Prosecco. In the Ginger Kiss, created by Ernesto’s head bartender Kristin Mefford, house-infused ginger rum gives Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato one long, lovely smooch. To build this well-balanced drink, Mefford combines 3 ounces of the flavored rum with half an ounce of tonic. The mix is shaken and strained into an old-fashioned glass, then topped with the Australian sparkling wine and sprinkled with a few housemade candied ginger pieces that melt in the drink and add some zing as you sip. Think tequila can’t date Prosecco? The Mexican spirit and the Italian sparkling white wine are a couple at Rosalita’s Cantina. The Sparkling Margarita, created by bar manager Juancarlos Lightle, is a pretty-in-pink twist on a Margarita that features Cazadores blanco with Riando Pink Prosecco, the black raspberry liqueur Chambord and fresh lime juice in a sugar-rimmed glass. Disclaimer: If you get all starry-eyed after that celebratory “toast to us,” don’t blame the drink – not a one is really all that boozy.