Champagne Jacquart, the revival of chic cocktails!

Joëlle Weiss, how is a cocktail with champagne an experience?

Cocktails are interesting as long as you take them in the opposite direction and make the best of them.The idea wasn't at all to make a cocktail where you add a little champagne to say it's royal.No, we took the opposite approach.For example, with the two we created with mixologist Julien Defrance, every 15cl in the glass already contains 10cl of champagne.It's the backbone of the cocktail. And I'm convinced that we'll be able to attract new consumers.

Why have you chosen Cuvée Mosaïque Brut as the base for your cocktails?

I think the cuvée Mosaïque Brutis Jacquart at its best.It's a blend of 60 crus.The dominant Chardonnay grape offers great freshness and minerality. The nose is dominated by white fruits, peach, nectarine and pear. It's also floral, the very expression of Chardonnay without the austerity.It represents the transition from spring to summer.Very fruity on the palate, with fleshy fruit....Sweet fruit.An elegant cuvée full of joy.That's the Jacquart spirit:finesse, light, with a gentle, delicate form of freshness.We wanted to choose our champion to design the best cocktails.

Designing a cocktail is a bit like creating a new cuvée, isn't it?

Mixology is the same process as when I make my own champagne.I bring together ingredients that would never have met without my intervention, with the sole aim of making them sublime.When I make my blends, I look for Meuniers from the Marne valley, Chardonnays from the Montagne de Reims, Pinots Noirs from the Côte des Bars, each with its own identity, and by bringing them together, we come up with a new product.It's the same for a cocktail or a dish, for that matter.I see these cocktails as an augmented reality of my Jacquart.

What do you say to people who think a champagne cocktail is heresy?

At Jacquart, we have every right to enter this world, provided we go for quality and put our best foot forward.Julien, our mixologist, understands this, and has combined my best, my champion, my Mosaïque brut with others to create cocktails that reflect our image and our high standards of quality.And when we looked into the archives, we realized that in 1982, the House had won the gold diploma in the national cocktail competition organized by the Association Barmen de France! Not bad, eh?

How did you go about creating these two cocktails?

We wanted freshness, so we used fruit pulp.It's a natural sweetness that we wanted to balance with our Mosaïque brut. For the "Twist & chic" cocktail, we opted for the strong, distinctive orchard fruit aromas present in Mosaïque brut.Julien wanted to add a gourmet touch with pear purée.There's a textural aspect to pears.There's the fruit, the sweetness and the little grain of the pear, which takes the cocktail into another dimension, totally consistent with my Mosaïque brut.To complete the exotic sweetness, he added a touch of lychee.Indeed, it was extremely gourmand. And finally, to bring it all together, he added a touch of ginger, a bit like our reserve wines would be our spices, here it's ginger.The final touch to balance the cocktail.A good cocktail is one that respects each ingredient and has its own identity.It bridges the gap between a pure champagne taster and one who would like to come to champagne, but needs a certain number of steps.

And for the second "Room 1964" cocktail?

For the second cocktail, we went into the world of noble red fruits.Raspberry is one, which goes well with the Jacquart universe.The initial blend was very girly, and Julien added a red fruit liqueur.But the Rolls-Royce of liqueurs has barrel-aged cognac in it.This adds just the right amount of vinous depth, which reveals itself as the cocktail warms up.Then what goes well with the red fruits is the rosemary.It was amazing, a bit " wow" when I tasted it, and we balanced it out with lime.Everything is really in its place.He convinced me and took me into another universe.

Does champagne still have a place in this cocktail?

Fluid mechanics are very important.I was very afraid of diluting the champagne with ice cubes, for example, and I tended to put just one, but in fact, you have to put a lot, so they don't melt.It's a no-brainer, but I hadn't thought about it at all.It's certainly a less alcoholic product, but with a fluidity that makes it thirst-quenching.We're still in the world of champagne with bubbles!I was afraid of that too, that my champagne would lose all its effervescence.The modus operandi is to start with the purées, then the ice cubes.The densities and temperatures are matched by stirring, and only then is the champagne added.If you put the champagne directly in contact with the ice cubes, it will lose all its bubbles.Working with a mixologist has enabled me to treat my champagne in a very respectful way.