The Sparkling French Martini and More

What’s a French Martini?

This Sparkling French Martini is just a tiny riff on the classic French martini. A French martini is made by shaking together vodka, Chambord (a French black raspberry liqueur), and pineapple juice with ice. It’s a sweet, tart, flavorful drink. To make it sparkling, add dry sparkling wine after pouring it into the glass.

How to Make Sparkling Cocktails

In fact, you can make any of your favorite cocktails into sparkling cocktails just by adding bubbly to the glass at the end. Well, maybe not ANY cocktail. You wouldn’t want to add sparkling wine to a Bloody Mary, right? Ha ha. But any cocktail that’s on the sweet side will work.

Definitely try adding sparkling wine to a classic margarita. It’s also great added to appletinis, mojitos, and cosmos. Here’s how you do it:

If the cocktail traditionally has a fizzy non-alcoholic ingredient, like the soda water found in a mojito, substitute a dry sparkling wine for that.

If the cocktail doesn’t have a fizzy mix ingredient, you can still add some bubbly. For instance, to make a sparkling cosmopolitan, do the usual cranberry juice, vodka, Cointreau, and lime and mix that in your martini shaker. Pour it into a large martini glass, then top it with sparkling wine. It will be pink, sparkly, and delicious.

What I haven’t tried is adding sparkling wine to the classic strong cocktails that have made such a comeback lately. But you’ve gotta bet that there’s a Sparkling Old Fashioned in my very near future.

Podcast Episode: Making A Champagne Bar

This post originally appeared in December 2015 and was revised and republished in December 2020.