Summer Spritzes

When I found myself standing in the kitchen facing a modest sink of dishes, I decided to procrastinate by fixing a drink to help animate the dishwashing process. That should have taken five minutes: grab a can of diet ginger ale, pull out the pitcher of sazerac, open the bottle of orange juice, make a pot of decaf. But no, it turned into a research project on Epicurious. Because it was literally freezing outside and I was craving some sunshine, I searched for “summer cocktails” and then narrowed the over 620 results down to four menus. The menus featured frozen cocktails, iced teas, spritz cocktails, and Fathers’ Day cocktails. Since Ten Speed Press had turned me down for their book on spritz cocktails last spring, I wanted to see what the fuss was. The Epicurious spritz gallery had fifteen different cocktails: some using club soda, some using sparkling wine, and some using both.

White Noise Spritz

Since I just wanted something light and sunny to get me through a sinkful of dishes, I wasn’t ready to open a bottle of sparkling wine or white wine and embark upon a full-blown Spritz Project. So I skimmed through the different options and chose the one – the White Noise Spritz – that didn’t require opening a bottle or mixing a pitcher. As per the recipe headnote, I felt free to substitute the Lillet that I had in the liquor cabinet for Cocchi Americano Bianco called for in the recipe. I had three oranges on hand, so I could have garnished with an orange twist instead of the grapefruit twist required by the recipe, but I decided to skip that step. Otherwise, my only other deviation was that I used a proper pint glass instead of a ten-ounce Collins glass.

The cocktail was simply amazing. I expected it to be good, since I like both Lillet and St Germain, but I wasn’t prepared for just how good it was. I regretted not having mixed a double to fill the pint glass, and almost mixed a second one. However, I had put the bottles back into the liquor cabinet and took that as a sign that I should exercise some restraint.

Lime Cordial

When I was working on Menu #1 of the Great Pineapple Experiment, I thought something light and sunny would be a good accompaniment to the meal. So I rechecked the spritz gallery and discovered that the Lime Cordial didn’t require me to do much more than make a very light simple syrup and decide what type of fizz to top it with. Therefore, before I started making the meal, I started the light simple syrup in order to give it enough time to cool for the drink to be ready with the meal. The whole process was super easy: make a light simple syrup, let it cool, stir in the lime juice, chill, measure and mix the drink in an ice-filled glass. Since I had super strong organic not-from-concentrate lime juice left over from my sours experiment, I used that instead of the fresh lime juice from eight limes. Because the recipe headnote stated that a Lime Cordial is usually a 3:1 ratio lime syrup to fizz, I measured out the ¾ cup lime syrup called for in the recipe and, rather than “topping off” with beer, I measured out ¼ cup beer in order to maintain the proper ratio. I had two types of beer in my refrigerator – Blue Moon and Magic Hat Electric Peel. Of course, I chose the grapefruit IPA to complement the citrus of the lime syrup.

I was surprised by how good the drink was. I thought it would be odd to mix beer with lime syrup, but it wasn’t. Especially since the drink was mostly lime syrup. And because the lime syrup was so light – more than a 3:1 water to sugar ratio – it wasn’t overly sweet or undrinkably thick. It actually was a perfect pairing with the Great Pineapple Experiment Menu #1 - spicy chipotle orange salmon and pineapple chipotle salsa - that I had for dinner. Since the cocktail as designed only had two ounces of beer, I didn’t feel badly at all about mixing a second one. For the second cocktail, I roughly measured ¾ cup of lime syrup over ice in my pint glass. Then I truly topped off the drink with the grapefruit IPA, using about half of the remaining beer. Not surprisingly, this time it wasn’t as sweet, but definitely fizzier. Also very good. I’m not sure which version I liked better, since they were both clearly better than the straight beer, which I finished after the second Lime Cordial.

Since I had a half full pot of lime syrup left over in the refrigerator, I mixed a third Lime Cordial with lunch the following day. This time, I measured closer to one cup of lime syrup just because I pouring too fast from the pot. I poured that over ice into my pint glass and topped it with an indeterminate amount of club soda. This was good, but, for some reason, did not seem as good as the version with the grapefruit IPA the night before. It had a bit of an off taste, which could have been due to the lime syrup settling overnight or to the age of the club soda. But it was nonalcoholic, so I had no qualms about drinking it in the middle of the day!

St Germain Spritz

About two weeks later, buoyed by the success of the first two spritz cocktails, I decided to fully commit to the Spritz Project. On my way home from one of my errands, I stopped at my small local liquor store and bought a package of three 187ml bottles of prosecco to experiment with the bubbly based spritzes. That seemed to be a smarter alternative to a buying a regular 750ml bottle of prosecco, which could go flat in the time it would take me to recipe test three or four different bubbly based spritzes.

In honor of Ten Speed Press approving me to review How to Drink French Fluently, a book about St Germain liqueur and related cocktails, I decided to re-engage with the Spritz Project with the St Germain Spritz. It was simple enough: fill a large wine glass with ice, add the prosecco, add the St Germain, and top with club soda. Unfortunately, I started with a normal sized wine glass and measured the St Germain first. When that filled half the glass, I knew I had to transfer it to a larger glass because I was supposed to add at least twice as much prosecco! Not to mention the club soda…

The St Germain Spritz was very good. It tasted and smelled like drinking straight St Germain, but did not feel as syrupy. I would definitely drink this cocktail again. In fact, my father made a nice version of it for Easter one year, but I think he used a light white wine instead of prosecco.

Cassis Spritz

During my exploration of cava cocktails, I found a bottle of crème de cassis at the back of my liquor cabinet and tested a recipe for a Kir Royale. One of my good friends loves them, so I was expecting something earth shattering. But it was just okay, probably because I tried it at the same time as a much better cava cocktail.

With that experience in mind, I wasn’t expecting greatness from the Cassis Spritz. The basic recipe was the same as the Kir Royale – one part crème de cassis to four parts dry prosecco. The difference was that this was to be poured over ice in a large wine glass and topped with an undefined amount of club soda. I unfortunately ran short of prosecco: my mini bottle only had three ounces remaining instead of the four ounces required, and I didn’t want to open another mini bottle to make up the additional one ounce. Of course, I then proceeded to use up the remainder of the small bottle of club soda, which was probably about five ounces.

The Cassis Spritz was good. Although the Kir Royale was a vague memory, I think I enjoyed the Cassis Spritz more. The addition of the club soda made the drink a lot lighter and mitigated the cloying sweetness of the crème de cassis.

Orange Cardamom Spritzer

Unlike the other prosecco spritzes, the Orange Cardamom Spritz required making a flavored syrup. Therefore, I started that before preparing anything else for my Chinese New Year mini feast so that the syrup would have a chance to cool by the time the mid-feast Champagne Toast rolled around. The recipe was pretty simple: simmer together equal parts white sugar and water with some lightly crushed cardamom and orange zest until the sugar dissolves and then cool before using in the cocktail. Of course, I ran into a few challenges. First, the cardamom I had was cardamom seed rather than cardamom pod. So the purpose of lightly crushing it – to release the seed from the pod – was pretty unnecessary. And there would be much more flavor in the given measurement because there was no unnecessary pod husk taking up space. But I went with it because I like the taste and smell of cardamom. Second, the orange that I had was on the old side so the peel would not remove with a vegetable peeler as directed. I understand that the purpose of the specific direction was to minimize the amount of bitter pith on the peel, but my peel just wasn’t supple enough for the vegetable peeler to catch. So I used a knife and did my best to minimize the pith. Of course, I put about four times more orange peel into the pot than required by the ingredients because I wanted to compensate for the possibility of including so much more of the bitter pith. Aside from those issues, the syrup came to a boil fairly quickly and the sugar dissolved flawlessly.

Once the syrup cooled to room temperature – before I started cooking for my Chinese New Year mini feast – I strained the syrup into an eight-ounce mason jar and refrigerated it. When the mid-feast Champagne Toast rolled around, I followed the recipe instructions and measured a fairly generous teaspoonful of the syrup into a champagne flute, added a dash of Angostura bitters, and topped with prosecco. If the recipe hadn’t specified Angostura bitters, I was all ready to break out the Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters that my awesome sister-in-law got me for Christmas. Alas, that will have to wait for a later experiment.

The Orange Cardamom Spritzer was really good. My syrup was just the right strength to flavor a flute of prosecco. I think if I had actually followed the recipe, the syrup would have been too mild and the spritzer would have been more like a sweet prosecco than anything special. If I ever make this recipe again, I would definitely make it my way – measuring the cardamom seed and quadrupling the orange peel.

Cointreau Spritz

Since the gallery note described the Cointreau Spritz as “sort of an amped-up mimosa,” I thought this would be appropriate to drink with my breakfast after Chinese New Year. Granted, I was still pretty full after my mini feast, so breakfast was just some plain yogurt with apricot preserves stirred in - plus my customary pot of espresso. The spritz itself was very straightforward: prosecco, orange juice, and Cointreau topped with club soda. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any Cointreau, which is a French orange flavored liqueur akin to triple sec, so I substituted Grand Marnier, which is a cognac based orange liqueur. It was only half an ounce to six ounces of prosecco and orange juice, so I felt comfortable with the substitution.

I definitely would not call this an “amped-up mimosa.” A very fizzy mimosa, maybe. But it was not stronger than your average mimosa. If anything, it was much lighter than the mimosas that I tend to mix. The recipe called for a 2:1 ratio of prosecco to orange juice, and I tend to lean a little more heavily toward the bubbly in my mimosas. Additionally, the recipe called for topping off the drink with an indeterminate amount of club soda; I used approximately half of a ten ounce mini bottle. So that diluted any additional kick that the Grand Marnier may have added. The drink was very pleasant on a Sunday morning, but I think I’ll stick with my traditional mimosas from now on.

Wine Spritzer

Although I have my own fairly decent recipe for a wine spritzer, I was still very interested in trying the Wine Spritzer recipe in the Epicurious gallery – primarily because it would give me a reason to try both the Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters and the Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters that my sister in law gave me for Christmas. Whereas my recipe uses fruit liqueur as an accent flavor, the gallery recipe uses a dash of bitters as an accent flavor. The recipe was a scant four ounce cocktail of white wine and club soda, so it would not be too harmful to make two cocktails – one with the West Indian Orange Bitters and one with the Lemon Bitters – and try them side by side.

If you do not believe in the transformative powers of good bitters, you absolutely must try the Wine Spritzer recipe from the gallery with a true dash of good bitters and compare that to a glass of plain white wine. I used a 2003 Riesling from Ontario (of all places!) as the base for the cocktail. I tried a mouthful of wine plain, and then I mixed one Wine Spritzer with a true dash of West Indian Orange Bitters and a second Wine Spritzer with a true dash of Lemon Bitters. And by “true dash” I mean that I stood there with an 1/8-teaspoon measure over the glass and milked the bitters bottle until the measure was almost overflowing. Aside from the fact that the Lemon Bitters turned the spritzer cloudy, I had absolutely no trouble telling the two glasses apart. One tasted and smelled like lemon, and the other tasted and smelled like orange. It was pretty amazing.

Of course, since I now had an open bottle of white wine in the house, I had to re-test my own recipe for a white wine spritzer. I forgot to pick up lemon or lime seltzer water at the supermarket, so I would have to use plain club soda instead. Because I was using one of my party wine glasses, I mixed a double – three ounces of white wine and two ounces of raspberry liqueur – and then dumped an entire ten ounce mini bottle of club soda into the goblet. It turned out that the plain club soda worked just fine, despite the added salts. The drink was very light and easy to drink, but it probably would have been even better had I chilled the wine or started off with some ice in the glass.

The Verdict

Recipe testing summer spritzes in the dead of winter was definitely a much needed ray of sunshine! Especially since now I have some really good recipes in my back pocket for when summer rolls around and I want something light and fizzy. Of course, my two favorites on the roster – the White Noise Spritz and the St Germain Spritz – both went heavy on the St Germain elderflower liqueur. Which is nice to know, because Ten Speed Press just approved me for that book exclusively about St Germain cocktails…

Curiously, two of the spritzes – the Cassis Spritz and the Cointreau Spritz – were basically traditional champagne cocktails topped with club soda. On the one hand, this worked nicely with the Cassis Spritz where the addition of the club soda helped mellow out the cloying sweetness of the crème de cassis. On the other hand, the addition of club soda to a perfectly good mimosa did nothing more than dilute the drink and add some extra fizz.

The gallery recipe for a Wine Spritzer was an interesting exercise in the transformative powers of good bitters. However, in the absence of good bitters, my own recipe still works.

The Recipe

White Wine Spritzer

1 oz fruit liqueur (Chambord, framboise, etc)
1 ½ oz white wine
seltzer water (lemon or lime is best)

1. Mix liqueur and wine in a wine glass. This will be about 1/3 glass of liquid.
2. Add seltzer to fill the glass to about 2/3 full.