Upon tasting Champagne for the first time, Dom Perignon called out to his assistants,"Come Quickly, I'm Drinking Stars!"

So if Champagne is heaven in a glass, why mix it in a cocktail? It's simple: Champagne is the pinnacle of the winemaker's art, while the cocktail is the crowning jewel of the mixologist's craft. When combined, the result is a beverage unrivaled in decadence, pleasure, and inspiration.

Champagne Cocktails proudly presents more than 100 traditional and nouveau concoctions--from Bellini to the Southern Belle to the Mambo King--plus toasts, jokes, and celebrity lore. Also featured are party tips, recipes for complementary foods, a listing of Champagne and sparkling wine producers, and a directory of the world's posphest Champagne lounges.

The Champagne connoisseur will toast these finer points of culture and fizziology, while the novice will delight in adding a new sparkle to the day.

August

Refreshing Summertime Fun

Sirius Stargarita

1oz tequila (chilled)
4oz Champagne
garnish with a lime twist

A cool summer cocktail, it has all the sparkle of a tropical night. The sweet spiciness of the tequila comes alive amid the bubbles.

September

An Late Summer Breeze

Metro

1 splash cranberry juice
1 splash Rose's Lime Juice
1 dash Cointreau
1oz vodka
4oz Champagne
garnish with an orange twist

With a blush like a harvest sunset, this crisp cocktail will pleasantly satisfy a late summer thirst.

October

A Sparkling Halloween Brew

Betelguese

1oz Stoli Vanil vodka
1tbs vanilla liqueur
1tbs Rose's Lime Juice
1oz white zinfandel wine
2oz Champagne

Pronounced beetle-juice, it's the name of a stellar constellation as well as this stellar cocktail, which recalls Dom Perignon's famous words upon first tasting Champagne: "Come quickly, I am drinking stars!"

November

Fresh idea for the Thanksgiving Feast

Americana

1tsp Bourbon
1dash Angostura Bitters
5oz Champagne
garnish with a fresh pear slice

Like Thanksgiving, the Champagne Cocktail was born in America. A touch of Bourbon, made from a blend of corn and rye, makes this the perfect cocktail to toast a bountiful harvest.

December

Colorful Christmas

Melony

1oz melon liqueur
4oz Champagne
Poinsettia
1oz Cranberry Juice
4oz Champagne

To complete the festive look of these two sparkling holiday cocktails try a red sugar rim on your Melonys and a green sugar rim on your Poinsettias.

January

The ultimate cocktail for ushering in the millennium

Moulin Rouge

1oz ice cold vodka
4oz Champagne

This cocktail toasts both Czar Peter the Great who declared January First as New Year' Day and Dom Perignon who discovered the perfect celebratory drink.

Amazon.com Review
The air in your automobile tires exerts a pressure of 28 to 36 pounds per square inch. The bubbles in a bottle of Champagne exert 95 psi. The next time you're feeling stressed, will you go for a drive or pop a cork? If you answered the latter, you're sure to enjoy Champagne Cocktails by Anistatia Miller, Jared Brown, and Don Gatterdam. No strangers to the chronicling of the good life, Idaho-based Miller and Brown are the authors of Shaken Not Stirred: A Celebration of the Martini; Gatterdam is the Manhattan-based director of custom publishing for the Wine Spectator and Cigar Aficionado folks. In 114 splashily colorful pages effervescently topped with sparkling quotes and liquid lore, readers and sippers will discover more than 100 recipes combining that jewel of the vintner's art with the craft of the mixologist.

Whether you fancy the purity of the Classic Champagne Cocktail--that alliance of sparkling wine and bitters that Esquire called one of the Ten Best Cocktails of 1934--or lean to the adventurous Mrs. Beeton's Champagne Cup--the one with the fresh borage sprigs--you'll be won over by this breezy treatise. Garnishing the pages of recipes and bartender's advice (citrus twists dropped in the glass tend to dissipate the bubbles quicker; ingredients should go into the drink in ascending order of expense) are wine wisdom and witticism from such diverse sources as Thackeray and Austin Powers, Babette's Feast and Absolutely Fabulous. To be fair, some of the potions are pretty funky--one of the ingredients in a Red Ambrosia is Hawaiian Punch, and mixing up a Gloria should allow you to use up that bottle of lychee liqueur you've been saving for just the right occasion. And while there is a short chapter featuring lists of the top sparkling producers worldwide, a concoction such as the "Diabolitan" featuring anisette, gin, and liqueurs of strawberry and pear might be budgetarily better-suited to Cooks than Krug. Yet where else could one discover the difference between a Mimosa and a Buck's Fizz while learning how to shear the neck off a bottle with a cutlass? No matter whether you're pouring a Spanish cava, a German sekt, or something French, you'll find it in the pages of Champagne Cocktails. --Tony Mason