5 French Champagne Cocktails to Serve at Your Next Party

While many cocktails use sparkling wine, not all sparkling wines are created equally. These recipes call for champagne—a sparkling wine made only in the Champagne region of France, home to some of the most famous wines in the world like Dom Perignon, Taittinger, or Ruinart. However, you don’t have to spend a fortune on these drinks. Brands like Pol Roger and Nicolas Feuillatte offer affordable champagnes made with traditional French methods.

Stylish, sophisticated, and surprisingly simple, these French champagne cocktail recipes are a foolproof way to impress your guests.

Paris, Paris

Created by Head Bartender Nicola Battafarano at Hotel Lutetia’s Bar Josephine in Paris, this delightfully simple cocktail mixes vodka and champagne with floral, herby notes to create a drink that’s sweet, savoury, and incredibly fresh.

Ingredients:

• 15 ml Vodka
• 7.5 ml St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
• 7.5 ml Citrus and Celery Shrub
• Champagne

Recipe: 

Mix the vodka, St. Germain, and celery shrub in a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour into a chilled glass and top with champagne. You can make your own celery shrub ahead of time by combining one bunch of celery and the zest of one lemon with 15 ml honey and 120 ml apple cider vinegar in a food processor and straining the mixture into a jar.

La Grande Dame

Be inspired by Cannes’ Hotel Barriere Le Majestic with La Grande Dame, a bright and flavourful champagne cocktail made with gin and lemon verbena, invented by the hotel’s beverage director, Emanuele Balestra.

Ingredients:

• 15 ml 44 Paradiso Gin
• Lemon Verbena Bitters
• Lemon Verbena Essence
• Champagne

Recipe: 

Use lemon verbena essence to lightly perfume a glass. Mix gin and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice and pour into the glass, finally topping the cocktail with champagne.

A Taste of Two Regions

José Guzmán, Bar Manager of Fine & Rare, is the inventor of A Taste of Two Regions, a cocktail that combines French champagne with Armagnac, a brandy made in Southwest France.

Ingredients:

• 22.5 ml 20-year Darroze Armagnac
• 15 ml Rosemary-infused Honey
• 15 ml Lemon Juice
• 1 Strawberry

Recipe:

In a cocktail shaker, combine one muddled strawberry with honey, lemon juice, and Armagnac with ice. Shake and strain into a glass and top with champagne. Top with a strawberry.

Pêché Mignon

Paris’s Hoxton Hotel has created a French take on the bellini, mixing an infused peach puree with champagne for a light, fruity version of the classic Venetian cocktail. St. Germain, jasmine tea, and vanilla pods give this drink a rich, complex flavour.

Ingredients:

• White Peaches
• St. Germain
• Jasmine Tea
• Cloves
• Vanilla Pods
• Champagne

Instructions: 

Infuse white peaches with St. Germain, jasmine tea, cloves, and vanilla pods to create a peach puree. Measure 45 ml peach mixture into a glass and fill with champagne.

French 75

Perhaps the most famous champagne cocktail of all, the French 75 was invented at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris by Harry MacElhone. This classic gin and champagne cocktail is simple, light and refreshing.

Ingredients:

• 15 ml Lemon Juice
• 5 ml Sugar
• 60 ml Gin
• Champagne

Instructions: 

Combine lemon juice, gin, and sugar in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a glass and top with champagne.