And the Winner is...

I'm not big on the Academy Awards. I love movies, but the Academy rarely nominates the movies and performances I like. But every year I find myself sucked into the televised Oscar show. "My" movies and actors are usually snubbed or robbed, and I dismiss the whole thing as condescending insider back scratching.

But I do like to see well groomed men dressed in nicely tailored suits. And it's always interesting to see what fashion designers choose to display on young starlets. And it's a great excuse/reason/opportunity to break out the champagne glasses.

So. You know. Sometimes I watch the Oscars. And sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised at the nominations and winners.

If nothing else it's fun to make fun of the whole thing from the comfort and safety of my couch.

Or on a friend's couch. Or an event venue. I've attended a few Oscar parties over the years. And they're fun. It's a nice excuse for a post-holiday-pre-Spring party, a fun way to break the winter doldrums. 

Whether you choose to host/attend a black tie Oscar party, host/attend a casual Oscar party at a friend's place or watch at home in your pajamas, a few celebratory drinks are the perfect accessory to your Oscar outfit.

Academy Awards = Hollywood = Classic Cocktails of Success = Champagne or Scotch

Here's mud in your eye, kid.

My family jokes that our minister mistakenly baptized me with drops of the celebratory champagne my parents brought for the post-baptismal party instead of Holy Water. I love the stuff (Champagne, that is). I can (and will) devote many posts to champagne and champagne-related bar/hosting information. This post won't cover all the intricacies and info on champagne. Right now we'll just stick to Hollywood glamor aspects of champagne.


Champagne is expensive. No getting around that point. If you're planning to sip champagne "straight," not as a cocktail, you want to spend money on a decent bottle of champagne.* Many people think they don't like champagne because they've only experienced "wedding toast" champagne.** I've witnessed many a conversion from champagne hater to champagne lover when the cork of a premium bottle of champagne is popped. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars, but plan to spend at least $30 on a bottle of champagne.  Veuve Clicquot, Moet & Chandon and Laurent Perrier offer solid, tasty champagnes in the $30 - $50 range.

You may also find "splits" of these brands. Splits are half-bottles of champagne/wine. Typically you'll get about 2 glasses of beverage from a split. More vintners are offering splits, now, so more restaurants, bars and stores have more champagne/sparkling wine options for consumers. They're a great, affordable way to try premium wines/champagnes. And, they're an affordable way to offer your champagne-drinking guests a few glasses of premium champagne.

For the purposes of this post we're focusing on champagne cocktails. If you're mixing champagne with another liqueur or beverage, go ahead and choose a less expensive sparkling wine but I suggest a Brut variety. Any of the affordable California sparkling Brut wines are a good choice for "champagne" cocktails. As long as you 1) chill the bottle of sparkling wine, 2) mix the cocktails shortly after popping the cork, 3) ensure the wine is effervescing, and 4) use quality mixers, all will be well.

The bad thing about champagne/sparkling wine, even those of exceptional quality, is that they're temperamental and have a short serving window. They must be chilled before opening and immediately served (or within an hour or two). I know people who actually like flat, neat champagne. I am not one of them. The whole point of champagne/sparkling wine is the delightful effervescence and the wonderful, dazzling explosions of flavor that dance on the tongue when champagne is served fresh and chilled. And just because you're mixing champagne in a cocktail doesn't mean that temperature and effervescence are not factors. Even Mimosas, served with heavy orange juice, are best made and served with freshly chilled bottles of sparkling wine.

Before I get to a few chosen Oscar-worthy drink recipes, let's briefly discuss serving glasses. Champagne is best enjoyed in flutes. The shape of champagne flutes isn't just to show off the effervescence (though they do offer a lovely presentation). The flute shape provides limited oxygen into the top of the glass - just enough to let the beverage breathe but not so much open surface area to flatten the champagne in minutes. A larger mouth/top allows more oxygen which flattens the beverage more quickly.

HOWEVER. Since this is the Oscars, Hollywood, baby, the old-school champagne glass offers a vintage air of sophistication and charm. The traditional champagne glass is called a "coupe" or sometimes a "saucer." Technically there's a slight difference. A saucer is wider and flatter - more saucer-like - than a traditional coupe. Whichever you choose, coupe or saucer, they immediately evoke Hollywood glamor and imaginings of the likes of Jay Gatsby and Bertie Wooster.  Your grandmother or great aunt probably had coupes, most likely heavily etched, with her set of crystal. Coupes are mainly used for champagne towers. (I picked up a set of perfectly shaped champagne coupes a few years ago at, of all places, IKEA.)

If you just want to serve an inexpensive, ceremonial sparkling wine/apple juice toast to the winners, or if you have children at the party drinking carbonated apple juice, go to your favorite party decoration store or warehouse club and buy a bag, yes, they're packaged in bags, of plastic champagne glasses. Some assembly required. Cheers.

Whichever type of glass you choose to serve your champagne or champagne cocktails, be sure it has ample stem length to hold the glass. The more contact the bowl of the glass (where the beverage is) has with fingers/hands, the more quickly the beverage will warm up and lose effervescence. So. Yes. Stems matter. A lot. Yes, champagne/sparkling wine is a lot of effort and extra work. So what. It's worth it.

Champagne Cocktail

What you'll need:

One sugar cube per glass (or exactly one teaspoon of sugar)

Dash of bitters

1 oz. brandy (optional)

Champagne/sparkling wine (chilled, freshly opened)

Lemon twist or cherry

Champagne flute

How you'll build it: 
Saturate the sugar cube with bitters.* Drop bitters-saturated sugar cube into bottom of a champagne flute. Pour in one ounce of brandy (optional). Fill glass with chilled, freshly corked champagne. Garnish with a cherry or lemon twist. Serve immediately.

*If using un-cubed sugar, pour one teaspoon sugar into champagne flute, then pour in a dash of bitters. Wait for the bitters to settle/saturate the sugar. Pour in one ounce of brandy (optional). Fill glass with chilled, freshly corked champagne. Garnish with a cherry or lemon twist. Serve immediately.

Kir Royale

What you'll need:

Champagne/sparkling wine (chilled, freshly opened)

1/4 oz. Chambord or Crème de Cassis

Champagne flute

Raspberry or lemon twist garnish

How you'll build it: 
Fill glass with chilled, freshly corked champagne/sparkling wine. Float Chambord or Crème de Cassis. Garnish with a fresh, plump (not frozen and/or mushy) raspberry. If you cannot acquire a fresh, plump raspberry, opt for a lemon twist. Serve immediately.

An old school variation of this is a Chablis Cassis. It is exactly what it sounds like: Chablis wine blended with Crème de Cassis. It's basically the same drink as a Kir Royale with slight modifications.The Chablis version should be served in a white wine glass. Pour 1/4 oz. Crème de Cassis into the white wine glass. Fill glass half-full with chilled Chablis, preferably a French Chablis. Garnish as the Kir Royal.

Okay, that's the toast and celebration drinks part of the Oscars covered. But what about the "where deals are made and hearts are broken" aspect of Hollywood? The movers and shakers, the producers, the directors, the financiers, the legends?

Clooney: Lost in Translation.

Scotch. Oh sure, in the photo ops the starlets and winners are posing with champagne glasses, but in other areas of the parties other people are drinking something a little stronger (but no less photogenic). Scotch.

We'll talk about Scotch and whiskey and Scotch whisky later. Right now we're focusing on Hollywood and the Oscars. If you're hosting a party, some of your guests won't like or want champagne, no matter how prettily you present it. Have a nice bottle of Scotch on hand for this tough crowd.

A Scotch and soda seems like a straightforward dink to mix.

Scotch.

And soda.

Don't be fooled. You can make this drink incorrectly.

• At least 1.5 oz. of Scotch should be used. Typically guests/patrons will expect a full 2 oz. of Scotch. They are not wrong in this expectation. A traditional Scotch and soda contains 2 oz. of Scotch, but many bars and restaurants have shortened the pour to 1.5 oz. or even 1 oz. over the last 15 - 20 years. My bartending school "officially" taught us to make them with 1 oz. of Scotch, but that's to comply with the median bar norm. If you're making these at home do not skimp on the Scotch. If you're making them at a bar or restaurant, ask your manager how they prefer you to pour Scotch and soda.
• Too much soda will ruin the drink. 
• I routinely see Scotch and soda served in the wrong glass and/or improperly garnished. Correct construction: High ball and a lemon. No exceptions other than patron/guest requests.
• Some guests will request their Scotch and soda with no ice or even neat. They may be from the UK or have a toothache or think they're going to get more alcohol without the ice in the glass. Whatever the reason, if they request a Scotch and soda without ice, technically they want it neat, which means the club soda should be room temperature. If you only have chilled club soda advise your guest that the soda is chilled.

Scotch and Soda

What you'll need:

2 oz. Scotch - premium or call

Club soda

Ice

Lemon Twist

High ball glass

How you'll build it:

Fill high ball (not a Collins, not a rocks glass) with ice. Pour 2 oz. Scotch into high ball (not rocks) glass. Fill glass with club soda. Garnish with a lemon twist.  


I have no idea if Francis Ford Coppola or Al Pacino drink these, but I'd bet a couple bucks that Marlon Brando thew back a few. I want to believe that he did, anyway. And it's a fun drink to serve at an Oscar party because The Godfather, the movie, won three Oscars.

God Father

What you'll need:

"Make it a double."

1 1/2 oz. Scotch

1/2 oz. Amaretto

Ice cubes

Rocks glass 

  

How you'll build it:

Fill rocks glass with ice cubes. Pour in Scotch and Amaretto. Serve. (ungarnished, I mean really, you think Marlon Brando or Al Pacino mess with swilly garnishes?) 

This next drink is as old Hollywood exec as it gets. The name says it all. 

Rusty Nail

What you'll need:

1 1/2 oz. Scotch

1/2 oz. Drambuie

Ice cubes

Rocks glass

How you'll build it:

Fill rocks glass with ice cubes. Pour in Scotch and Drambuie. Serve. (ungarnished and best served on a casting couch) 

Since this is Academy Award oriented Scotch, and the Oscars are presented in California, another swanky but frutiy old Hollywood cocktail to try is:

Whiskey Sour

What you'll need:

2 oz. whiskey

3/4 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice (~1/2 average lemon)

1/2 teaspoon powdered or granulated sugar

Ice cubes

Cherries or lemon twist for garnish/cherry and lemon wheel garnish

Martini glass or rocks glass

How you'll build it:

Add whiskey, lemon juice, sugar and ice to a cocktail shaker. Martini shake ingredients. Strain into martini glass. Garnish with cherry or lemon twist.

Or:

Fill rocks glass with ice. Add ice from rocks glass, whiskey, lemon juice, sugar in a cocktail shaker. Roll, do not martini shake, ingredients. Pour all ingredients including ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with cherry and lemon wheel.

A guest might ask for a "stone float" on their whiskey sour, or they may call, "Whiskey Stone Sour." In barspeak, a stone is orange juice. A stone float is a dash of orange juice served floated on top of the mixed drink (not mixed into the drink). A whiskey stone sour uses equal parts orange juice and sour mix instead of the lemon/sugar mix. If you mix with orange juice, even just a stone float, garnish with an orange wheel instead of lemon.

This one's for the party guests who don't drink alcohol and the children in attendance. A lot of people don't actually know how to make these so I'm including the recipe here in honor of the drink's Hollywood legend namesake.
Shirley Temple

What you'll need:

3 oz. 7-up (or lemon-lime soda)

3 oz. Ginger ale

dash of Grenadine*

Ice

Cherry, orange skewered on cocktail sword and cocktail monkey or umbrella

High ball glass 

Wanna buy a monkey?

How you'll build it:

Fill high ball glass with ice. Add 7-up and ginger ale. Float grenadine. Garnish with fruit and monkey/umbrella. 

*Carefully examine the ingredients of your bottle of grenadine!!!! Some grenadine contains alcohol!

And there you have it! Enough booze ideas to keep a Beverly Hills party going for the first 10 minutes. And I feel good knowing I'm one of the few pages on the web featuring Marlon Brando, Shirley Temple, George Clooney and a cocktail monkey. Which sounds like the start of a joke. "Marlon Brando, Shirley Temple and George Clooney walk into a bar. The cocktail monkey says..."



*Only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France may be called Champagne. "Champagne" from anywhere other than the Champagne region of France is sparkling wine, but that is not an indication of it's quality or potability. There are some extraordinary sparkling wines from Napa which hold up against their French Champagne regions cousins at a fraction of the cost.

**I know, I know, I'm disclaiming right now that not all weddings are toasted with inexpensive champagne. But often the bride and groom are served from a "nice" bottle of champagne while the guests are served champagne that's easier on the budget. Servers/bartenders are not supposed to cover the label of any bottle they're serving from, however brides/mothers-of-brides often request that servers cover the label of inexpensive champagne/wine bottles with a white towel (or their hand) when serving guests. If you attend a wedding or hosted event and you find, or suspect, that this is the case, do not call out your server for covering the label. Servers know it's improper serving form. They're only doing it at the request of the host(ess). Save the dignity of everyone involved and merrily accept whatever the server pours into your champagne/wine glass without question then raise your glass high in tribute to the toasts and drink at least one sip after each salute. A couple swallows of inexpensive champagne will not kill you and ultimately the pride you save will be your own. Calling out the server/host on an inexpensive bottle of champagne/wine will only make you look like the cad you apparently are.