Smoked Champagne Cocktail

The oldest trick in the book, and still the best one. A sugar cube soaked in bitters, sitting at the base of the glass, waiting. It was already old when it was printed in The Bon Vivant's Companion in 1862, and through the 1920s it worked a second job in the speakeasies, where sugar and bitters covered for whatever the sparkling wine actually was.

Here the cube takes on a third job. Smoked before it goes in, it carries apple wood down to the bottom of the coupe and gives it up slowly as it dissolves. There is nothing to watch. No veil on the surface, no curl over the rim - the smoke is inside the sugar, and from there it goes into the wine. This one is tasted rather than seen.

Cognac warms the middle. Angostura draws a line of clove and bitter bark through the whole thing. Nothing here is hurried.

Prepare: Chill a coupe and set it aside. Sit the brown sugar cube in a small glass. Place the Sixpence Alchemy smoker over the mouth of that glass and light a pinch of apple wood chips, so the smoke pushes down and settles over the cube. Five to eight seconds is enough. Lift the smoker away.

Make: Move the smoked cube to the chilled coupe. Saturate it with four dashes of Angostura -

 the alcohol in the bitters draws the smoke down into the sugar and holds it there. Add the cognac.

Finish: Top slowly with chilled brut, pouring down the inside of the glass so the bead stays fine and the cube is left undisturbed. Express a lemon zest twist over the surface and rest it against the rim. Serve while the cube is still dissolving.

Nose - Lemon oil and apple wood, with clove sitting behind them.

Palate - Dry and fine on arrival, all citrus and bread. Then the cognac underneath, warm and faintly raisined, and the bitters drawing a bitter line through the middle.

Finish - Long and dry. The smoke builds rather than fades, released as the sugar gives way.

The last mouthful carries the most smoke.