Champagne Snowball
Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 11.4% ABV ∙
The Champagne Snowball is a shaken, part-sparkling cocktail of dry sparkling wine, fino sherry, lime cordial, and advocaat, strained up into a flute. Creamy egg-liqueur sweetness leads, cut fast by tart lime cordial and a dry, nutty sherry edge before the fizz lifts it clean — a curious brunch or holiday sipper.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Pour into the chilled glass: Dry sparkling wine 60 ml
- Shake the remaining 3 ingredients with ice: Fino sherry 30 mlLime cordial 15 mlAdvocaat liqueur 60 ml
- Fine strain over sparkling wine in the glass
- Express a lime twist over the cocktail and discard
- Garnish with a dusting of cacao powder over the cocktail
Tips
- Shake only the sherry, advocaat and lime cordial with ice, never the sparkling wine, then strain into the flute before topping to preserve carbonation.
- Shake hard for a full 10-12 seconds since advocaat is egg-based and thick, ensuring it emulsifies fully and doesn't sit heavy at the glass bottom.
- Pour the sparkling wine down the side of the flute after straining the shaken mix in, minimizing foam-over given the drink's already dense, creamy base.
- Dust cacao powder over the surface right before serving and twist the lime peel over the glass to release its oils, then discard the peel.
History
The Champagne Snowball is an elevated, sparkling-wine reworking of the classic British Snowball, a drink thought to have originated in Britain in the late 1940s or early 1950s and to have reached its peak of popularity in the 1970s, when it was typically made simply with advocaat and lemonade. The Champagne Snowball trades that lemonade for dry sparkling wine and adds sherry and lime cordial to the advocaat base, a version created by a British drinks writer as a more refined take on the retro original.
