We’ve shared a few versions of the classic French 75 here, but you don’t have to limit yourself to mixing champagne with gin. For Christmas, my sweet parents – who as complete tee totalers cannot make heads or tails of my love for cocktails – got me the new book by New York’s Death & Co bar. It is a tremendous resource for anyone who loves cocktails and I cannot recommend it enough. Here’s just one fantastically fun recipe that combines rum with champagne for another installment of this month’s champagne series, the Dark ‘N’ Bubbly. – Andrew

Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Dark n’ Bubbly

1 1/2 oz Aged Rum
1/4 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Ginger Syrup
Dry Champagne or Sparkling Wine

Shake the rum, lime, and ginger syrup with ice and strain into a chilled coupe or flute. Top with champagne and enjoy!

The Dark n’ Bubbly is a fun play on the Dark n’ Stormy, a drink of rum, lime, and ginger beer. Here, the effervescence is provided not by ginger beer, but the much crisper and drier champagne. It’s a lively, light recipe and a lot of fun to drink.

For the rum, we used Flor de Caña 7 year. Flor de Caña is a Nicaraguan rum that is mellow but complex and surprisingly inexpensive considering its quality, so it has become one of our go-to rums for mixing. For the ginger syrup, Death & Co. calls for curried ginger syrup, but that wasn’t something we had lying around the house. We did, however, have some ginger syrup from the Brooklyn-based Morris Kitchen, which makes some pretty great syrups for cocktails. (Hands-down favorite: try their preserved lemon syrup and you’ll be hooked.)

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, where we’ve been posting lots of our experiments before they reach our Friday Happy Hour column!

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper