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The Bubbly Girl

Bubbly Events
Moet & Sugar Cubes: The Bubbly Bar Los Angeles Launch Party at The Edison

Last week I met up with some new and old friends in Los Angeles at The Edison for a Bubbly Bar book launch party that featured Moet & Chandon Champagne. In case you haven’t been, The Edison is a unique night club venue in downtown Los Angeles set in an old private power plant. Many of the old power plant fixtures like doors to coal furnaces remain, but the place has been plushed out with velvet sofas, original vintage style light fixtures and movie screens that show old sepia toned movies. < Besides lots of friends, the party in the Tesla Room drew members of the Medill Club of Southern California, media Los Angeles including Lori Corbin, the Food Coach from KABC, Michael Reel of Reel Urban News and Natalie Bovis-Nelson, The Liquid Muse and Michael Jenkins Brown of South Bay Foodies. I only wish Julia Fitzroy, the lovely and…
October 15, 2009
Bubbly Events
Love & Basketball: Behind the Bench, The Bubbly Girl & Schramsberg

Last weekend I went up to Beverly Hills to create a sparkling cocktail from The Bubbly Bar at a luncheon that included the wives of many professional basketball players and a few Hollywood celebrities. Behind the Bench is a non-profit charitable organization run by the wives of current and former NBA basketball players. This year’s festivities culminated in an awards luncheon that honored actress Angela Bassett and director Penny Marshall. Schramsberg’s Cremant was the featured wine at the luncheon staged at the hip and modern SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. A blend of Flora and Gewurztraminer grapes, the Schramsberg Cremant is a sweeter style known as a demi sec. The ladies sipped a cocktail from my book called the Stiletto, a subtly potent blend of Grand Marnier, Navan cognac and sparkling wine as an aperitif. Chef Nikki Shaw and DeShawn Snow formerly of Real Housewives of Atlanta were the co-emcees…
September 28, 2009
Entertaining, Pop Culture
How to Open a Bottle of Champagne – The Right Way!

Just last night I was having dinner with a really smart and fun foodie friend who loves, cooking, wine and cocktails. At one point the conversation turned to sparkling wine and champagne –big surprise! But I was surprised when she admitted that when it came to opening bubbly, she usually handed the bottle off to someone else. If you’ve been suffering from a secret fear of opening a bottle of bubbly, don’t despair! With the help of my TV reporter friend Kristi, I’ve recorded this video to teach anyone how to open that bottle of bubbly safely. As you’ll read in the introduction of my new book The Bubbly Bar: Champagne & Sparkling Wine Cocktails for Every Occasion the first thing to do is to make sure to chill your sparkling wine properly for 30 minutes to an hour in the refrigerator or an ice and water bath. There’s…
September 23, 2009
Cocktail Recipes
The Bubbly Girl Drink of the Week: The Aviation

Aviation has been on my mind. Both the kind that you sip and the kind that involves checking in and taking off your shoes. I guess that’s probably because I’m getting ready to travel to my hometown Chicago for Bubbly Bar book parties on October 1, 2 and 3. But Chicago was also the first place I tasted the Aviation. It was on an election night — that momentous election night of 2008 — visit to The Drawing Room in the Gold Coast area. Scanning cleverly written menu, I spotted an Aviation, which included gin, maraschino and violet liqueur — I was in. Since it was a quiet night, head mixologist Charles Joly brought the custom-made bar cart to the table and started making our drinks. As he worked, he told the story of the Aviation. I’d never understood why the clear combination of gin, maraschino and lemon labeled an Aviation…
September 20, 2009
Celebrities & Champagne
Bubbly Girl Drink of the Week: The Rich Girl

It’s been a busy week since The Bubbly Bar launched last week with an awesome bash for 400 who sipped Domaine Chandon sparkling wine cocktails at the Hotel Solamar. The fun continued this week when I was the guest mixologist at Rock the Cure, a benefit to raise money for juvenile diabetes research through JDRF.org. My signature event cocktail was The Rich Girl named in honor of the event headliners Hall & Oates. A deliciously potent blend of brut sparkling wine, Grand Marnier and Navan Cognac, the Rich Girl was a revinvention of The Stiletto cocktail from the book. I wish Navan had been around when I was writing The Bubbly Bar; the fine French cognac is infused with Madagascar vanilla and has a wonderfully warm and complex flavor. It blends perfectly with the natural curacao orange in Grand Marnier, which is also a cognac based liqueur. To make it…
September 5, 2009