Easy Cocktail Recipes

The ancient Greek believed that ambrosia, a kind of honey mead, was the drink of the Gods, who lived high up on the summit of Mount Olympus. This modern-day version from across the Atlantic slips down equally nice.

Simplicity itself to make, this colour-rich cocktail is the perfect prelude to a romantic evening.

Reputed to have been one of Ernest Hemingway’s favourite drinks from the time when, as a young writer, he took up residence in Paris, this powerful cocktail must have been responsible in its time for many “lost” afternoons. You need to be careful when you make it as otherwise you run the risk of losing the delicate champagne bubbles.

If you like your Bellinis, you’ll adore their near relation, the Rossini, though, on this occasion, we don’t know whether the name honours the great 19th-century Italian opera composer or not.

Created by Giuseppe Cipriani, the founding father of Harry’s Bar in Venice, and named in honour of the great Venetian artist, this cocktail became a favorite tipple of a host of celebrity visitors, including the writer Ernest Hemingway and the actor and playwright Noel Coward.

This drink takes the royal treatment even further by gilding the juniper flavor with fruit juices and a blush of pink grenadine for a bubbly elixir of pure pleasure.

This 1940s-era Champagne cocktail of classic composition is named after the equally stylish photographer Lee Miller, infamous as muse and model for the surrealist artist Man Ray.

At first glance, this cocktail may seem elegant and refined, but within the bubbly is a monsoon of flavors and a potency that suggests you hang on to that palm tree before you have another.

Straight from the Ritz Hotel Bar in Paris comes this sunny, citrusy variation of the classic French 75, a great alternative to serve at brunch in place of the usual Mimosa.

You don’t have to pit the cherries for this punch, because you’re going to strain them out later, but if you’d like to blend them up with ice for a daiquiri or an adult smoothie, you must pit them first.