Rose Spritz

On a remarkably nice (warm but not oppressively hot and humid) Washington, DC evening, I met my daughter for dinner at the lovely French Bistro, Chez Billy Sud, in Georgetown. Naturally, we had to start with a cocktail, and we were both intrigued by the “Rosé Window” – a combination of St. Germain, local Capitoline Rosé Vermouth, lemon, and sparkling wine. We enjoyed it so much that we ordered a second round with dinner. It was bright and bubbly, not overly sweet - the perfect summer cocktail. 

We neglected to ask the bartender for the recipe, but it wasn’t too hard to recreate it at home. Shockingly, it didn’t even require a trip to the liquor store since we had all of the ingredients on hand! We used a dry prosecco, since the floral St. Germain adds plenty of sweetness. The Capitoline Rosé Vermouth has a base of California Sangiovese Rosé with notes of orange and clove and just the right amount of herbal bitterness to work with the other ingredients in this cocktail. Dolin Rouge vermouth would probably work in a pinch, but the Capitoline vermouth really shines in this cocktail and gives the drink its beautiful rose color.

Vermouth, St. Germain, and Prosecco are all relatively low ABV (alcohol by volume), so we made a tall cocktail in a double old-fashioned glass complete with a large ice cube and a lemon and thyme garnish. The key here is to give the St. Germain, vermouth, and lemon juice a good shake before adding the prosecco. It doesn’t work well if you try to build this drink in the glass because the citrus requires a good shake to properly combine it with the alcohol.

The Cocktail Artist happened to have a number of “rose” watercolors and we used a close-up of a pink rose bloom to accompany this drink that we’ve renamed the “Rose Spritz”. It’s certainly nice to be able to mix one at home, but if you’re in Georgetown we recommend stopping by Chez Billy Sud for a cocktail.

Cheers!

Rose Spritz

1 ounce St. Germain
1 ounce Capitoline Rosé Vermouth
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
3 ounces dry Prosecco

Add the St. Germain, vermouth, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well and strain into a double old-fashioned glass with a large ice cube. Add prosecco to the glass and give the cocktail a light stir. Garnish with a lemon twist and a sprig of thyme.

Pink Rose - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist

Garden Bouquet - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist

Spring Roses - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist


Popular posts from this blog

The Last Call

Image
This post is a week late, but this blog is our hobby (not our real job) so we’re not going to worry about it. Anyhow, we came up with this drink for Mardi Gras as the “last call” before the beginning of Lent – a time when some of us stop drinking for 40 days (we’ll let you know how that works out). The name “Last Call” also references the classic “Last Word” cocktail. The Last Word is really a perfect cocktail. It’s equal parts of four ingredients (gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur, and lime) and a superb balance of tart, herbal, and sweet. It’s one of our fallback cocktails – one that we mix up when we can’t make up our mind about what we want to drink.  Another classic that we regularly enjoy is the Aviation Cocktail. The Aviation is another gin cocktail and is one of the few that uses Crème de Violette – a sweet, floral liqueur that is typically a deep purple hue. It takes mixing quite a few Aviations to go through a bottle of Crème de Violette, so it’s prob...
Read more

Lemon Bergamot Gimlet

Image
In case you don’t know us personally, or haven’t read the bio on our blog , you may not realize the “The Cocktail Artist” is really a partnership between two architects (who also happen to be married to each other). One of us comes up with the recipes, does the photography, and writes the blog posts – the other one creates all of the original artwork and offers opinions on the cocktail recipes. Being architects, we sometimes let our design-sense get the better of us – meaning we have been known to purchase a bottle of booze because we like the design of the bottle.  Occasionally this backfires, but rest assured (with some creative mixology or a bit of barrel-aging) we have always been able to make use of the contents of those impulse-buy bottles. Right now, two of the most attractive bottles in our liquor cabinet contain Italian spirits – Malfy Gin Con Limone and Italicus . Italy has always been a design trendsetter, so it’s not surprising that these bottles stand out...
Read more

Amalfi Martini

Image
Darn! Why didn’t we buy those airline tickets to Italy when they were cheap? It would be so nice to be lounging in a beautiful Italian seaside town right now.  The Amalfi region, on Italy's west coast, is known for it's production of lemon liqueur and fine writing and art paper - sounds like the perfect place for us! Oh well, maybe it would be better to be there during the off season. Italy is probably packed with American tourists right now. Let's  just pull out the watercolor paints and the cocktail shaker and bring a bit of la dolce vita  to our patio. Our Amalfi Martini (naturally) features limoncello. It's a fairly low-alcohol liqueur, so we boost the proof of this cocktail by adding our vodka of choice - District Made Vodka by One Eight Distilling. If you are using a vodka that doesn't have much flavor on it's own (which, honestly, is most vodka) you may want to add a couple dashes of citrus bitters to this recipe. This just wouldn't be an Ita...
Read more

Cherry Capital Old Fashioned

Image
Cherry Capital Old Fashioned - original watercolor painting by The Cocktail Artist If you've read some of our previous posts (such as the Up North Raspberry and Rye or the Grand Mariner Cocktail) you know that we're fans of the bourbon and rye produced by The Traverse City Whiskey Co . Traverse City, Michigan is known as the "Cherry Capital" for being the area with the largest production of tart cherries in the United States. In Traverse City, you will find wonderful freshwater beaches, lots of summer tourists, and (of course) cherries! You can attend the Cherry Festival in July, go to the Cherryland Mall, and fly into Cherry Capital airport. So the folks at Traverse City Whiskey (naturally) produce an American Cherry Edition of their bourbon. Here in the Nation's Capital we were lucky enough to find this cherry bourbon at our local liquor store. It's a nice bourbon for sipping neat, but during #OldFashionedOctober we also tried it in an Old Fashioned and...
Read more

Douglas Fir Martini

Image
This was one of our very early blog posts. Now that the holiday season is here it seems like a good time to revisit it. Our cocktail recipe remains unchanged, but we wanted to add some information about the ingredients and include a bit more artwork. This martini, with it’s pine forest aroma, is our antidote to holiday stress. Mix up a couple of these to help you through your decorating, gift-wrapping, etc… Doesn’t enjoying a cocktail while you relax in front of the fireplace sound much nicer than struggling to get the Christmas tree in the stand? Along with The Cocktail  Artist's watercolors maybe we can give you the feeling you're walking through a pine forest instead of stressing out over some holiday preparations. At the heart of this cocktail is Clear Creek Distillery’s Douglas Fir Brandy . We discovered this unusual liqueur in our local liquor store a couple of years ago and just couldn’t resist giving it a try. Clear Creek calls it “a tree in a bottle”. It's m...
Read more