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Baltic Midnight

Sparkling wine cocktail with a sugar cube in a champagne flute.
Photo by Jordan Hughes

This sparkling cocktail recipe plays on the classic Champagne cocktail, which is made by dropping a bitters-soaked sugar cube into a glass of Champagne. This produces a delightful fizzing effect, where the sugar cube continues to bubble and dissolve in the Champagne (or another kind of sparkling wine) as you sip. For this twist, I added an ounce of aquavit, which is essentially Nordic gin, flavored with herbs and spices that sometimes veer savory, so I felt like the recipe landed somewhere close to French 75 territory.

This bubbly drink is a great morning brunch cocktail. The name was inspired by my time visiting Northeastern Europe in the summer, where it’s so far north that the sun never really sets that time of year. So even at midnight, it feels like it’s daytime. This, combined with my strange craving for breakfast food in the late hours of the evening, made me decide that a “Baltic Midnight” was the best time of day.

This recipe was excerpted from 'Twist' by Jordan Hughes. Buy the full book on Amazon.

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