Suzi's Blog
Pear Royale: A Distinctively Delicious Champagne Cocktail
Brian and I are working our way through Kim Haasarud’s wonderful 101 Champagne Cocktails. We’ve learned that we like recipes with some sophistication: working with multiple ingredients you can introduce layers of flavor that absolutely confuse your tongue. And that confusion is a terrific characteristic for a cocktail. You tell yourself: I like this. And you immediately ask yourself: what is this.
By having multiple flavors, in little amounts, added to champagne you can truly create enchanting beverages. This cocktail, as with some others we have blogged, uses pear to introduce a pure fruit flavor. And some gin to provide a sting to the drink.
From Kim’s book we have also blogged the Oscar 78, another pear-flavored cocktail that is lovely. That recipe requires more effort than this one. This Pear Royale is a great ice breaker for parties. Yet it is easier to prepare. You can scale this recipe up and have a pitcher ready for your guests.
Or just for you.
Pear Royale
Yield: 1 drink
Ingredients:
- Simple syrup for cocktail rim
- 2 tablespoons superfine sugar, for cocktail rim
- ½ ounce pear liqueur
- ½ ounce gin
- 4 ounces slight sweet sparkly wine
- Pear slice for garnish
Preparation:
Wet the rim of a chilled champagne flute with simple syrup and dip into a plate of superfine sugar.
Combine the pear liqueur and gin a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Add the sparkling wine and stir. Strain into the sugar-rimmed flute and garnish with appear slice.
Source: 101 Champagne Cocktails by Kim Haasarud.
POM Royale: An Easy Champagne Cocktail
Champagne cocktails come in many forms, from the very simple to the very complex. I’ve been working my way through 101 Champagne Cocktails by Kim Haasarud, which has a bevy of simple, complex and in between.
This one is totally simply but distinctive. You may have had a Kir Royale, made with a little cassis topped off with champagne. Cassis is made from black currants, which are technically berries but do not have the sweetness you normally associate with strawberries or blackberries. A Kir Royale is delicious, and can be lightly tinted to “berry” dark depending on the amount of cassis you employ.
A recent addition to the liquor world is POM, the pomegranate liquor. This one is sweet. And using POM produced a beverage that has distinctive sweetness and flavor. And, once again, depending on how much you use, you can vary the color from very lightly red to deeply intense.
This is a champagne cocktail that you can rattle off in seconds, yet offer your guests something wildly new. It’s the perfect starter beverage for a party where you want to focus on your guest and perhaps the food, and not spend too much time playing bartender.
Ah, Kim suggests making this drink with Red Rosso Spumante, an inexpensive red sparkling wine that widely found. It is sweeter than champagne so, when combined with the POM, it’s a lovely drink. We have only used Spanish Cava in our experiments and Suzen and I both found it the perfect complement to some tapas dishes: smoked salmon with balsamic tomatoes and shrimp with mayonnaise avocado.
POM Royale
Yield: 1 serving
Ingredients:
- 3-4 pomegranate seeds or cranberries for garnish
- ¾ ounce pomegranate liquor
- 5 ounces sparkling wine [Red Rosso Spumante, Champagne, Cava, …]
Preparation:
Drop the garnishes, either the seeds or cranberries, into the bottom of an empty champagne flute. Add the POM liquor. Top with the sparkling wine.
If you desire, garnish with an orange twist.
Source: 101 Champagne Cocktails by Kim Haasarud
