Champagne and Cream: Yes, you can

Continuing the sparkling adventures of New Year's lead-up's, now a visit with a cocktail hero of sorts: Champagne Flip. Like nog; but made of champagne.

Possibly you are thinking this is what comes of a tipsy host late in the evening when he stands above the bar, surveys the potential combinations with an imagined stomach of steel that will give way by morning, and begins an ill-fated chemical experiment.

I cannot speak to how this thing originated. It could very well be just as you suspect: The lovely remains of a spirited evening in a castle in post-revolutionary Champagne when someone should have called the carriage two hours before and carted 'ol Pierre home before he took to frothing egg whites.

Let's say it is; Far better than discovering it was developed in the corporate office of Korbel over a marketing meeting, eh? Yah, so let's cling to romance, you and I. And make a noggy-something out of champagne and canapes from truffles and this will be a wonderful, wonderful, if slightly unrealistic, new year.

Champagne Flip

There are many creamy champagne cocktail recipes that call for egg. This one is delightfully frothy and quite nice strained into a flute.

3/4 oz Brandy
2 - 3 dashes Cointreau
1/4 ounces cream
1/4 ounces sugar syrup
1 egg yolk
4 ounces sparkling wine
1 pinch nutmeg

Shake brandy, Cointreau, cream, sugar syrup and egg yolk over ice cubes in a Martini shaker. Strain into a champagne flute, and carefully fill with sparkling wine. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

(Follow FDA guidelines for avoiding salmonella in the use of raw eggs.)


Recipe: Avalon Wine, Photo courtesy: Taste Austraila