Recipe: Champagne cocktails

Serves 1.

Note: Bartenders have had normalized relations with this cocktail for years. This modern classic is credited to Audrey Saunders, owner of the renowned Pegu Club in New York City, and has been replicated in bars across the country, as La Belle Vie regulars can attest. At its core, the Old Cuban is a Champagne mojito with rum, lime, sugar and bubbles working together for the drink's greater good. Tailor the lime and simple syrup to your own tart-to-sweet preference. To make simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water over low heat until the sugar dissolves, then cool. Adapted from "The Cocktail Spirit With Robert Hess."

• 8 to 12 fresh mint leaves

• 1 oz. (1/8 c.) lime juice

• 0.75 oz. (1 1/2 tbsp.) simple syrup (see Note)

• 1.5 oz. (3 tbsp.) aged rum

• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Directions:

Gently muddle the mint with lime juice and simple syrup in a shaker, but do not mash the mint to obliteration. Add rum and bitters and shake with ice. Finely strain into a coupe glass and top with sparkling wine.

Serves 1.

Note: Don't shove that bottle of rum into the back of the liquor cabinet just yet. The Air Mail is an old standby, dating to at least the 1940s and depending on whom you ask should be made in a variety of manners. One of the oldest versions calls for (gasp) less booze and more honey syrup, another more booze and less honey. This formula finds middle ground for a tart and tall, party-friendly sipper. In these proportions, a half-ounce of honey adds just enough sweetness and depth agreeable with a gold rum. To make honey syrup, simply dissolve two parts honey in one part water.

• 1.5 oz. (3 tbsp.) gold rum

• 0.5 oz. (1 tbsp.) honey syrup

• Dry sparkling wine

Directions:

Shake rum, lime juice and honey syrup with ice. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice and top with sparkling wine.

Serves 1.

• 1.5 oz. (3 tbsp.) genever (see Note)

• 0.75 oz. (1 1/2 tbsp.) Grand Marnier

• 1 tsp. simple syrup (see Note)

• 1 dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters

• Dry sparkling wine

Stir together genever, Grand Marnier, simple syrup and bitters with ice, and strain into a flute glass. Top with sparkling wine.

Serves 1.

Note: Speaking of death, Ernest Hemingway's original recipe for this lingering elixir simply called for a grave-digging 1.5 oz. of absinthe and sparkling wine topper. Yikes. Supposedly, the fabled writer/drinker actually slurped these puppies, and it wasn't merely named after his book of the same name. This updated version drops down the absinthe and cuts and dulls its wormwood potency with lemon juice and simple syrup for us mortals. We still prefer the legendary scribe's eponymous daiquiri. To make simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water over low heat until it dissolves, then cool. From "Diffordsguide," by Simon Difford.

• 0.25 oz. (1 1/2 tsp.) absinthe

• 0.5 oz. (1 tbsp.) lemon juice

• Dry sparkling wine

Directions