The 7 Best Champagne Cocktail Recipes to Mix on New Year’s Eve

Who could say no? The Champagne Cocktail is the father of them all, immortalized in the first ever cocktail book in 1862, but modern palates might find it a little puzzling. It is composed of Champagne with a dash or two of the spice-heavy Angostura Bitters and a sugar cube—essentially an Old Fashioned, with sparkling wine instead of whiskey. And while we may prefer some of the other drinks on this list, none of them say New Year’s Eve quite so robustly as this. Have one at the stroke of midnight with the recipe below, or click here to find out why Prosecco actually works better here than Champagne.

Saturate the sugar cube with bitters, about one or two dashes. Place bitters-soaked sugar cube in a coupe, fill with sparkling wine and garnish with a lemon peel.

The Airmail feels modern, but it’s almost as old as airmail itself—airmail (the postal service) made such a splash in the culture, it was only a matter of time before they named a drink after it. This is a riff on the classic French 75, with three changes: Rum instead of gin, lime instead of lemon and honey instead of sugar. This makes a cocktail familiar but distinct, refreshing but deep—one of those drinks that is interesting enough to keep your attention, but not so loud as to demand it.

Shake rum, lime and honey syrup together hard on ice for six to 10 seconds. Add sparkling wine, then strain into a tall glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a lime wheel or honestly nothing at all.

The Old Cuban—aged rum, lime, simple syrup, and mint, with Angostura Bitters and Champagne—is very often described as a combination of a French 75 and a Mojito, but we think that’s not quite right. Both of those latter cocktails are pure brightness, while the vanilla from the aged rum and the spice from the bitters in the Old Cuban moves it from poolside to inside as if under a slowly twisting ceiling fan in a smoky room, long narrow beams of light through the wooden shutters. It is the darker side of refreshing, the more alluring and seductive side, and has our vote for one of the best cocktails invented in the last 20 years.

Add all ingredients except wine to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake well for 10 to 12 seconds and strain into a flute or stemmed cocktail glass. Top with wine and garnish with a mint leaf or sprig.

The Mimosa may not win the Oscar for best brunch drink, but it wins the People’s Choice Award year after year. As the simplest sparkling wine cocktail ever made, Mimosas out-compete the others, but this ease and ubiquity can sometimes breed contempt (i.e., If you’ve ever had a Mimosa, you’ve likely had a bad one). That being said, a well-made Mimosa is a lovely and almost salutary drink, giving you a kiss of juicy sweetness alongside just enough of the “hair of the dog that bit you” to make that bite stop hurting. For a while, at least.

Pour wine into a Champagne flute. Add juice slowly and enjoy.

Before gin and Champagne ever got involved, the French 75, officially “Matériel de 75 mm Mle 1897,” was a 2,700-lb field gun rolled out by the French to fight WWI. As for the cocktail, made as it originally was—which is to say, a full-strength drink into which was mixed a half glass of wine—the French 75 certainly had the firepower to earn its name. That first reported recipe differs from what you find now. For years the French 75 was served on the rocks in a tall glass, essentially a Tom Collins with the soda water swapped for sparkling wine. The modern incarnation is in a flute, sans the ice. In the video above, we show how to make the two versions of the beloved Champagne cocktail the French 75 and explain the key differences between the two.

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Proper French 75

Shake first three ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled flute, and top with about 3 oz. of chilled Champagne.

Old School French 75

Shake first three ingredients over ice. Strain into a tall glass over ice, and top with about 3 oz. of sparkling wine.

This cocktail is an Ernest Hemingway original, and to this point we humbly offer some advice: Never follow the author’s cocktail recipes to the letter. His version is a stunning double-shot of absinthe to which is added almost a full glass of Champagne, a nearly undrinkable concoction with enough alcohol to tranquilize a bull. Far better is to flip those ratios, making a sparkling wine drink with just a little absinthe and a perfect pre-dinner aperitif. Investigate whether the whole thing started as a joke here, or first make it for yourself with the recipe below:

Combine ingredients in a coupe or Champagne glass. Garnish with a lemon peel or nothing at all.

Bellinis are perfect for late afternoon on New Year’s Eve, as a first drink to get into the evening. It’s been a staple of the Italian cocktail scene since it was invented in Venice in the 1940s and is as simple as a Mimosa—just three parts wine to one part peach purée—proving that a bright, light, slightly sweet sparkling wine cocktail is ever just a couple pours away. Find out here how much of your savings you’d have to deplete to drink them at Harry’s Bar in Venice, or just make one yourself according to the recipe below.

To start, make sure your peach puree and Prosecco are fridge-cold and your glasses frozen, if possible. For easiest results, mix ingredients together in a separate shaker or container and stir to integrate. Once foaming subsides, gently pour into cold juice glasses or flutes and enjoy.