Spritz Cocktails

Reimagine a Classic

Take your spritz-fest to new levels by playing around with tried-and-true flavour combinations. Spritz up a classic Sidecar with some French Crémant; give limoncello a little more bounce by adding pink Prosecco and ice, and sweet vermouth mixed with cava is a can’t-miss combo.

Paper Plane Spritz

It only takes a few tweaks to “ spritz-ify”a modern classic such as the Paper Plane cocktail. Dial up the festive herbal and nutty notes and add a little celebratory fizz.

Chilling

Set yourself up for spritz success by chilling down the sparkling wine to fridge temperature in advance (and 30 minutes in the freezer right before serving can’t hurt).

Easy as 1, 2, 3

The classic spritz ratio is three parts fizzy wine, two parts bitter aperitivo and one part soda water. Treat that as more of a loose guideline than a law when riffing on the spritz with fresh flavours and new ingredients.

Keep It Dry

A super-sweet wine can easily throw a spritz off-balance, especially since bitter aperitivos generally have a little sweetness added for balance. Look for dry or off-dry bubbly.

Incorporate Red Bubbles

Most spritzes call for white fizzy wines, but bubbling it up with a bright-red sparkling such as Lambrusco makes it even more festive. That can make for a fruitier Spritz, which pairs incredibly well with all the holiday staple finger foods, from rich baked cheeses to spicy charcuterie boards.

Ruby Spritz

Lambrusco is an Italian sparkling red that can taste bone-dry or sweet and fruity. This recipe calls for a dry expression, which often works well in spritzes and other bubbly wine cocktails. Most spritzes can be adjusted for any wine’s sweetness level simply by using restraint when adding syrups, juices and liqueurs.

Make Spritz Spheres

Take a page out of pro bartenders’ pre-batching techniques by freezing “cocktail spheres” (or cubes) in advance. It sounds—and looks—next-level, but it’s actually a pretty simple technique, as long as you add enough water to proof it down. Alcohol freezes at colder temperatures than water but anything around five per cent alcohol by volume (ABV) should freeze up nicely overnight.

Grinch Spritz

Since the prep for this cocktail is done the day before, when the melon-flavoured ball is mixed up and frozen, this Spritz makes a great welcome drink: just add bubbles and garnish. And since it’s as easy to make a batch of ice spheres as it is to make one, it’s also a great candidate for scaling up to serve a crowd.