Top 5 Sparkling Wines to Toast the New Year

This year, we are hosting a small New Years Eve party for some of our friends and family. We will be snacking on tasty Italian antipasti, making wood-fired pizzas, and sipping tasty drinks throughout the night. The most important task on our party planning list is finding the perfect bubbles to celebrate with! Here is a quick round-up of our favorite affordable sparkling wines that will go well with any dish you serve this NYE. 

1. Domain Chandon Sparkling Wine- $15

2. Gruet Sparkling Wine Brut- $16

3. Nino Franco Prosecco Rustico NV- $20

4. Domain Carneros Sparkling Brut- $30

5. Lanson Black Label Brut Champagne- $40

Check out this fun video from our friends at Winc for some fun sparkling wine trivia that will surely amaze your party guests!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Champagne Lovers Gift Guide

If you haven't heard...we love champagne. No. We ADORE champagne and we love anything related to our favorite bubbly beverage. With holiday shopping in full swing, we have been looking for gifts to buy each other. The list of things to buy each other is so EPIC we decided we must share with all our other bubbly lovers. Here is a list of our favorite gift ideas for all the bubbly babes on your christmas list!

xxx Ivy & Eve

For the Jetsetter

1. The carry on champagne cocktail by W&P Design. Now you can go anywhere and never be without your staple drink! 

For the Fashionista

2. The champagne bottle clutch from Kate Spade. What gets better than carrying all your essentials in a glittery bottle of champagne?

For the Trend Setter

3. Seriously- bring us champagne and we will get up faster then you can pop that bottle! Available here.

For the Gatsby Lover

4. Stackable champagne glasses are the ultimate party trick and perfect for any Great Gatsby themed party! Available at Coupe Stack.

For the Foodie Friend

5. By now, we all know Sugarfina and their delicious champagne gummy bears. Not everyone knows about their bubbly bento box. This is the ultimate collection of Sugarfina's champagne candies including their baby champagne gummy bears, sparkle pops, and bubbly bears. What makes this bento box so special is that it's not only a collaboration with Johnathan Alder and the box is made with 24k gold, but the baby champagne bears and the bubbly bears are infused with Don Pérignon Vintage champagne! Hello YUM! Buy them here.

For the Designer Diva

6. Because who doesn't need a champagne cork side table?! Available here.

For the Beauty Babe

7. Trust Fund Beauty's Champagne Socialite will make your mani go perfectly with your bubbly drink and on-trend velvet party dress. 

For the Stylish Nerd

8. Now you can subtly show off your love for bubbles and science! This necklace is shaped like a molecule of wine. Buy one here!

For the Bookworm

9. This beautiful and informative book about champagne will look perfect on anyone's coffee table! Available here.

For the Life of the Party

10. Chambongs. Why didn't we have these when we were in college?! Now available in plastic - perfect for poolside parties! (We have these and LOVE them!)

Cotton Candy Champagne Cocktail

We love sweet things and cotton candy has always been one of our favorite treats to buy at fairs and carnivals as kids. 

We have seen similar cocktail on Pinterest and always wanted to try but we could NEVER seem to find cotton candy in our hometown. So when we happened to find a shop that sold the real deal, we bought some for our carnival themed Halloween party we decided we must take full advantage of the opportunity. 

Our recipe is different to others in that they all let you dip the cotton candy into the glass of champagne, where we pour the champagne on top of the cotton candy. This recipe is much quicker to make then our Autumn Champagne Cocktail recipe since it only has two ingredients. Surprisingly, we found that the cotton candy did not make the cocktail super sweet. If you want it to be sweeter, just keep adding more cotton candy! The cotton candy melts within seconds so be sure to serve it in front of your guests so they can see the magic. We loved the bright color we got from the blue cotton candy but feel free to test out all the different colors! We are definitely planning to make for our next girls night or brunch.

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes 4 cocktails.

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of brut champagne
• 1 bag of cotton candy

Directions:

1. Place a small pinch of cotton candy in glass.
2. Pour bubbly in glass over cotton candy
3. Enjoy!

Pop Fizz Clink Repeat: DIY Champagne Flutes

Its FriYAY, time for a restorative glass of champagne!

We received these cute confetti glasses a few months back and take them out any time we pop open a bottle of bubbly. The only down side of these glasses is that we only have two! So we decided to make similarly festive flutes to go along with them whenever we have gatherings. Its super easy to make your own and we suggest you run out and get the supplies (only two things!) you need for this fun and glitzy craft! Once you make these babies, you will be inviting everyone over for a restorative glass of champagne! 

xxx Ivy & Eve

P.S. We got our favorite motto from our only reality tv guilty pleasure, Made In Chelsea. Mark Frances is our spirit animal. :)

Above: Marc Frances preaches the good word of Saint Dom (Perignon)

Materials:

Champagne flutes (we purchased ours at Bevmo)

Gold glass paint marker (available at most craft stores, here is the one we used)

Steps:

1. Clean flute surfaces with glass cleaner.
2. Shake glass paint marker well.
3. Write on flutes: "Pop", "Fizz", "Clink", "Repeat".
4. Allow glasses to dry in a ventilated area for 8 hours.
5. Once dry, bake in oven at 375° F for 40 minutes in non-preheated oven.
6. Let flutes cool in open oven.
7. You are now ready for a restorative glass of champagne! 

Note: glasses are dishwasher safe.

At the End of Our Rainbow: DIY Glitter Champagne Bottles & Printable!

With Saint Patricks Day looming, it got us thinking about reaching the end of a rainbow. What would we find? As kids, we would have wished for unicorns, magic wands, and Hogwarts letters. Although we're still waiting for our Hogwarts letters (we're convinced that our owls are just lost), we also wouldn't mind finding some of these bottles of bubbly! We will be celebrating the Luck O' the Irish with these glittery treasures.

xxx Ivy & Eve

Here's how to make your own:

Materials:

Can of spray adhesive

Glitter

Bottles of your favorite bubbly (we used mini bottles, but any bottle will work)

String

Print outs of our printable

Tin foil

1. Cover work surface with newspaper (we did this DIY outside)

2. Cover neck of bottles with foil, to prevent adhesive and glitter sticking to it. 

3. Spray bottles evenly with adhesive. (make sure to pop ay bubbles that may appear)

4. Sprinkle glitter on bottle until covered, shake off excess.

5. Let bottles dry.

6. While bottles dry, print and cut tags. Punch holes and thread string through the tag.

7. Slip tag over neck of bottle. 

8. Taa-daa! That simple!

Champagne Friday: Champagne Cocktail Edition

First off, Happy Champagne Friday!!! We have all successfully made it through another week and WE think that is grounds for celebration! 

If you want to dress up your Friday bubbles, but still want it to taste like sparkling wine, a classic Champagne Cocktail is the perfect solution. This simple yet chic cocktail is always well received. Our first memory of this classy glass is of post-shopping lunches with our parents in San Francisco's Neiman Marcus Rotunda Restaurant. They would always start off the lunch with this festive drink. We were, of course, too young (darn!) to partake in the toast back then, but the fond memories have stayed with us. The classic way to make this cocktail is to add a few drops of Angostura aromatic bitters to a bought sugar cube, and pour in the bubbles. Our house never has sugar cubes on hand (who's does?) so we decided one day to make our own. On a whim, we tried adding the bitters to the sugar mix and they turned out splendidly! We hope you enjoy them as much as we do and create your own fond memories. 

Cheers! 

xxx Ivy & Eve

Aromatic Bitters Sugar Cubes

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tablespoon Angostura aromatic bitters (or specialty bitters like Bar Cart Cocktail Co. Summer Bitters)

Silicone sugar cube tray (found here on Amazon)

1.     In a bowl, combine the sugar and 1/2 of the bitters. Mix until the bitters are evenly distributed and all sugar is colored. Add more bitters as needed. You want the sugar to be damp, not wet.

2.     Pack the sugar mixture into the silicone cube tray.

3.     Microwave for 30 second intervals until hot and steamy.  (All microwaves are different but we usually cook ours for two 30-second intervals).

4.     Let cool and dry.

Store your cubes in an airtight tin or baggie.

Champagne Cocktail

Makes 2 cocktials

1 bottle brut sparkling wine chilled (such as Charles Ninot Blanc De Blancs which is a tasty basic, whose flavor is enhanced by the additions below)

2 champagne flutes

2 lemon peel twists

2 or more aromatic bitters sugar cubes

1.     Add 1-2 aromatic bitters sugar cubes to each flute

2.     Slowly fill the flutes with sparkling wine. The sugar cubes will cause the sparkling wine to fizz extra so pour slowly to make sure there are no spillage!

3.     Top with a lemon twist

4.     Cheers!