A Cure for ‘Champagne Fatigue’
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Mixologist Jonathan Pogash looks young enough to be carded — not consulted — on matters alcoholic. Yet, at age 28, he oversees cocktail service at several New York restaurants and bars, including Solo, Prime Grill, Carnegie Club, Campbell Apartment, and World Bar. I approached him last week for counseling on an embarrassing problem for a wine writer: Champagne fatigue. It’s an affliction brought on by a seasonal surfeit of holiday parties. A moment comes, usually in the week between Christmas and Near Year’s Eve, when one more glass of bubbly seems like a glass too many. This year, I decided that a good antidote to Champagne fatigue would be to explore the unfamiliar (to me) realm of Champagne cocktails.
Mr. Pogash — his Web site is thecocktailguru.com— proposed a Champagne cocktail tutorial at Bookmarks Lounge, a cozy bar on the roof of the Library Hotel on East 41st Street. Not all Champagnes are suited to cocktails, he explained when we met last Thursday. An edgy, possibly even cerebral, blanc de blancs Champagne, for example, might be admirable on its own, but it gets lost in a cocktail. “For me, the best Champagne for a cocktail is Moet & Chandon White Star, which is just slightly off-dry — more sec than sweet — and holds its bubbles well when you mix and shake it with fruit essences,” Mr. Pogash explained.
A trio of seasonal infused Champagne cocktails developed by Mr. Pogash is currently on the drinks menu at Bookmarks. During our meeting, the first such drink he prepared, using a tall, heavy tumbler, was the “ginger pomegranate” version. (See recipe below.) Into the tumbler went a few ounces of foamy White Star. Then, with a teaspoon, he dropped in a dollop of pomegranate concentrate, a pinch of chopped ginger, and a splash each of fresh lemon juice, Grand Marnier, and simple syrup, made from equal parts of water and dissolved sugar. Then he securely slipped a stainless-steel Boston shaker over the mouth of the tumbler and briefly but forcefully shook it at shoulder level. “I like to make a drink in a clear glass in front of the customers so they can see the process,” he said.
After filling my Champagne flute with the shaken ginger pomegranate mixture three-quarters full, Mr. Pogash topped off the cocktail with White Star, its silvery froth immediately becoming infused with the brilliant crimson of the fruit. The last touch was a lemon twist. To the taste, this was a subtly bracing drink, and only a tad sweet — and it looked beautiful. “People drink first with their eyes,” Mr. Pogash said.
Next, he mixed a sour cherry Champagne cocktail, combining a few cherries and a splash each of simple syrup, lemon, and Grand Marnier. Using a blunt-ended, pestle-like tool called a muddler, he lightly mashed the cherries into the liquids before straining the mixture into a flute and plopping in a single whole cherry. “I like using Grand Marnier because it brings liveliness and freshness to the cocktail, and it combines well with Champagne,” he said. Then Mr. Pogash mixed his pear Champagne cocktail, consisting of pear nectar, Austrian pear liqueur, and Champagne. After pouring the cocktail, he squeezed a lime, skin side down, into the drink to enliven it with a touch of the citric oil, then placed the lime peel around the rim of the flute. “You get the hit of the citrus first, and then the pear comes through,” he said.
What is thought to be the original Champagne cocktail, developed by the pioneering 19th-century bartender Jerry Thomas and included in his book “Bar-tenders Guide, or How to Mix Drinks,” first published in 1862, was no more than a sugar cube infused with Angostura bitters, dropped into a glass over which Champagne was poured, and finished with a lemon twist. Thomas bartended widely, ending up with his own establishment on Broadway near 23rd Street — a site that is now the premises of a Restoration Hardware store.
New Jersey-bred, Mr. Pogash aspired to be an actor when he arrived in the city seven years ago as a Skidmore College graduate. But after being hired as a “barback,” or bartender’s assistant, at the Russian Tea Room, he rode the wave of “the mixology craze” pioneered by the Rainbow Room’s Dale De-Groff in the 1990s and never looked back. After the closing of the since-reopened Russian Tea Room in 2002, Mr. Pogash became the protégé of Albert Trummer, an Austrian bartender at Town, then a new and hot restaurant in the Chambers Hotel. Mr. Trummer was one of a new breed of bartenders known as “bar chefs,” who concocted their own bitters and sour mixes rather than using packaged versions.
For the specialty cocktail menu at Bookmarks, Mr. Pogash has created the likes of the Tequila Mockingbird, sweetened with agave nectar rather than simple syrup, and Hot Off the Press, blending mandarin orange spice hot tea with maple syrup, Gosling’s rum, and Harvey’s Bristol Cream. But at this season, he said, “the Champagne cocktail comes into its own.” I noted, with gratitude, that after ample sipping of the trio of seasonal cocktails he’d prepared, I felt just fine. “I don’t make drinks that knock people out,” Mr. Pogash said. “That’s not the point.” At this season of too much tippling, that’s a blessing.
More Champagne cocktail recipes can be found at thecocktailguru.com.
Jonathan Pogash’s Pomegranate-Ginger Champagne Cocktail
6 oz. Moët & Chandon White Star Champagne
3/4 oz. pomegranate concentrate
Splash of fresh lemon juice
Splash of simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water)
Splash of Grand Marnier liqueur
Pinch of minced ginger
1. Shake 3 oz. of Champagne pomegranate juice, and a splash each of lemon juice, simple syrup Grand Marnier, and minced ginger.
2. Strain into a chilled Champagne flute.
3. Top off with another 3 oz. of Champagne.