No, I haven’t tried the cider variation—I forgot all about that one. Now you have me thinking about it again. I like the idea of subbing calvados for the champagne, it’s certainly worth a try. Then perhaps a bitters with a bit more cinnamon or pie spices than the Angostura. A fine drink for harvest time, perhaps?

Good idea on the Demerara cubes; as a matter of fact, I found some at my local grocery, good sized box that will probably be a lifetime supply! Thanks for the Amazon idea.

Also, you can get Demerara sugar cubes on Amazon, if you ever want to experiment with those.

Yes, it’s a good version of champagne. I hope your bartender spreads the word.

Great line. :)

Here’s another (slight) variation. I don’t generally have sugar cubes available, so use a small amount of coarsely-granulated demerara sugar instead. Still gives something for bubbles to form on at the bottom and a (little) more dissolves into the drink compared to cubes. More significantly, what does dissolve imparts some of that rich demerara flavour. It complements the bitters quite nicely. I suspect that without the brandy in the drink, I’d notice it even more.

I hadn’t considered before that there may be a geographic preference for including the brandy. I learn something every day.

The drink has a simpler flavor without brandy, and the characteristics of the bitters influence the flavor more directly. Including brandy makes a better blended cocktail, I think. And I’m not the only one: David Wondrich, in Imbibe!, claims to be “shamefully partial to the hot-rails-to-hell practice…” He cracks me up.

Even more tellingly, the brandy is so ubiquitous here that I’ve never even thought to omit it on the rare occasions I’ve made one myself. I think I prefer the sound of the brandy-less version, to be honest, and will certainly try it out!