Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Hugo Spritz!
A nice little champagne cocktail for your Mom.
Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Mother’s Day is fast approaching. Did you get something nice for her? No? Well, let’s make a tasty champagne cocktail for her. Lord knows, the way the news is going, the gift of booze is always welcome. Time for a Hugo Spritz. Here’s the recipe:
Hugo Spritz
1 ½ oz. St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur
½ oz honey syrup
½ oz lemon juice
3-5 mint leaves, plus more for garnish
3-5 oz brut sparkling wine
Sparkling water
Add the honey syrup, lemon, St-Germain, and mint leaves to a cocktail shaker or pint glass. Gently muddle the leaves — they should be lightly bruised, not paste. Add the mixture to a wine glass filled halfway with ice. Add sparkling wine. When the foam has subsided, add sparkling water to fill the glass. Garnish with several mint leaves.
I am a bit of a historian at heart. I love unearthing exotic, picaresque stories of how cocktails were invented. So I’m rather appalled to learn that the Hugo Spritz was created by a bored German bartender who was sick of Aperol Spritzes back in 2005. The name of the cocktail has an even more embarrassing history. Roland Gruber, the inventor of this drink, came up with “Hugo Spritz” completely at random. Originally, he was going to call it the “Otto.” Go figure. At least Mr. Gruber has the decency to use a dashing name when behind the stick. While bartending, he goes by the moniker “AK.” I use “Hooper” when I’m working. Who am I to judge?
St-Germain is only marginally more interesting, as far as I’m concerned. It was created in 2007 by Robert Cooper, owner of Cooper Spirits, a cordial company based in New York. It is not French. It is not bottled in France. Mr. Cooper isn’t French either.
If I seem a bit salty about St-Germain and cocktails that feature it, it’s because I’m not an elderflower fan. However, many of my customers do enjoy it. It is a solid way to add a light, floral note to a cocktail. It’s been used a lot, in all sorts of drinks. Death & Co., one of the greatest craft cocktail bars of all time, poured a lot of it in its early days. St-Germain earned the name “bartender’s ketchup” because it ended up on everything, and people loved it. As time went on and other options emerged, craft bartenders moved away from the liqueur. But it still gets a lot of love at smaller bars and upscale burger joints. (For the record, I’m not a ketchup fan either. Heinz 57 on my burger, please, just like Jimmy Buffett preferred.)
By extension, I prefer my Hugo Spritzes to have a bit of zing, to contrast with the sedate St-Germain. Honey and lemon are always a nice complement to champagne. St-Germain is fairly sweet, so using a dry brut sparkling wine helps keep the sugar under control. But it’s the fresh mint that really helps this drink sing. The brisk, clean mint oil cuts through the quiet floral notes of elderflower, bringing some contrast and brightness to the cocktail. St-Germain might not float my boat, but this drink will definitely brighten up the average Mother’s Day buffet.
Let’s talk ingredients:
St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur: Don’t tell anyone, but if you’d rather make an Aperol Spritz, I won’t mind. I like them more. But if elderflower is your jam, don’t accept substitutes. I’ve used cheap elderflower liqueur, and it tastes exactly like bootleg St. Germain.
Honey syrup: 1:1 honey and water, mixed until the honey is dissolved. Pure honey is too thick to work with. It’s hard to pour and turns into taffy when it gets cold.
Lemon juice: Always use fresh. You wouldn’t use ingredients that aren’t fresh for your mother, would you?
Mint leaves: I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be gentle with your mint. Bruise the leaves slightly. Release the mint oil. Do not make paste. Nobody wants to drink mint paste. And you certainly don’t want to strain mint paste out of your cocktail before serving it to Mom. And please, put a big bouquet of mint on the drink as a garnish. The scent will be heavenly.
Brut sparkling wine: Use what you like, but sweet wine will make a sweeter cocktail. Mind your sugar levels in the drink.
Sparkling water: Don’t use club soda. It has a touch of salt to it that’s out of place here.
My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.
OPEN THREAD!
Busy busy busy questions here.
Last night I talked to my brother and found out the last three remaining family members from my dad's side had died, not all at once, but my cousin died in March, my aunt last year, and the other cousin an unknown number of years back.
Now this part of the family had been cut off for years going back to when I was in teens, my dad did not like his sister and her two kids were fucked up to put it nicely. But learning they are all dead has bugged me all day. My aunt was about my mom's age, in poor health, so that I expected. But her 2 kids, my cousins, were both close to me in age. The boy became the leader of a drug dealing motorcycle gang and was one of Indiana's most wanted at some point, I don't want to google his death because I doubt it was natural causes. The girl end up with a drug addiction which she passed down to her son (my second cousin) who is apparently still alive and in and out of rehab.
I hadn't talked to any of them in over 30 years.
I think what is bugging me is the connection to my dad. (who died when I was 24.)
Thank you Wonkette therapy couch.