New Year's Champagne Cocktail: The Wintergreen
Here's another New Year's Eve Champagne cocktail. Want more? Drink up!
It's the frostiness in mint that reminds me of winter. I love how it leaves an icy trail as it goes down. And to me, nothing is more dead-of-winter than New Year's Eve: Perhaps because we girls are relegated to little dresses in even smaller temperatures. Recall the season of the snowmen as you celebrate around a toasty fire with this wintergreen cocktail. Champagne is mixed with sweet mint syrup and crème de menthe, and crowned with a mint-green wreath of mint sugar. Cool.
About the author: Kerry Saretsky is a Serious Eats intern and the creator of French Revolution Food, where she reinvents her family's classic French recipes in a fresh, chic, modern way.
Wintergreen
- The ingredients below make 1 Wintergreen cocktail; repeat as often as necessary. You will get between 10 and 12 from two bottles of Champagne -
Ingredients for the Wintergreen
1 1/2 tablespoons mint simple syrup (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon cold clear crème de menthe
Champagne, chilled
Mint sugar for garnish (recipe follows)
1 mint leaf, for garnish
Ingredients for the Mint Simple Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 stems fresh mint (each has about 6-10 leaves on it)
Ingredients for the Mint Sugar Garnish
1/4 cup sugar
2 stems mint, leaves plucked from the stalk
1 slice lemon
Procedure
1. Begin by making the mint simple syrup. Put the sugar, water, and mint in a saucepot, and bring to a boil, stirring the sugar so it dissolves. Shut off the heat, and allow the syrup to come to room temperature. Remove the mint.
2. While the syrup is cooling, make the mint sugar by combining the sugar and fresh mint in a mini food processor. Blitz the two until completely combined into a mint-green sugar. Place the mint sugar on a salad plate.
3. Rub the slice of lemon around the rims of the champagne flutes. Dip the wet rims into the mint sugar. It should stick and form a sparkling crown on the glass.
4. Trying to avoid disturbing the sugared rim, pour 1 1/2 tablespoons mint simple syrup and 1 tablespoon clear crème de menthe into the each champagne flute. Top with champagne; be careful not to pour too quickly, or the fizz will ruin the sugar rim. Float a single mint leaf in each glass.
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3 Comments:
that sounds delicious. i love mint, and i love champagne.
redzerostar at 7:52PM on 12/30/08
One question: are you boiling the leaves on the stems in the simple syrup or only individual leaves? It would be easier to pluck everything out if it were all on a stem.
chanterelle at 12:53AM on 12/31/08
I just leave it on the stem--much easier!
Kerry Saretsky at 8:02AM on 12/31/08