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I had to ask him to repeat himself. The representative from Remy Martin had just told me that the bottle of Cognac was one of only 30 in the country, and that the bottle was black crystal; made using an entirely new process for Remy. Such facts are not so unusual, however, in the world of spirits. The statement that had caused my mind to briefly shut down was that it was worth £5000. My bartenders calculator immediately told me that was almost £200 per measure, meaning that it could retail in a bar for about £1000 a snifter (guessing conservatively). This is not a cognac for use in a Sidecar. When the cost of a spirit approaches this sort of telephone number level, one has to wonder if there is some sort of massive practical joke being played, if not on oneself, but on the entire industry.

In 1948, the then head bartender of possibly the most famous bar in the world, Harry's Bar, Venice, was Giuseppe Cipriani, presumably related to the eponymous Harry Cipriani. The bar had become famous as a haunt of many famous people, including Ernest Hemingway, who drank Hemingway's (now a drink made with absinthe and champagne; then probably considerably more lethal), and Field Marshal Montomery, whose drink, the Montgomery (duh!), is 15 parts gin to one part vermouth; apparently because he aimed for a kill-ratio of 15 enemies to each man he lost(!). Harry's Bars have since sprung up around the world, perhaps most notably in Paris and Singapore, where the Singapore Sling was invented.

"There are three intolerable things in life; cold coffee, lukewarm Champagne, and overexcited women." Orson Welles

In keeping with the article above, this weeks cocktail article will discuss the venerable classic champagne cocktail. This cocktail has a very established history, going back as far as the 1850's and dinner parties at that time. The first time it really got a good public outing, however, was probably Mark Twain's 1930's work, ‘A Champagne Cocktail and Catastrophe'. It's not all about catastrophe, however; as Mr Twain said, ""Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right".