Revive Prosecco or Champagne Bubbles with Raisins

16 Jul

Since I am not a quitter, since I am a person who finishes what she starts, it’s been a long time since I have had to resort to this trick.

When I open a bottle of prosecco or champagne, it is always with a friend (or several) and there’s never anything left in the bottle by the end of the party. But yes, it sometimes happens that you just can’t finish by bedtime and you regretfully stick the bottle in the fridge, bidding adieu to those marvellous, fine, fizzy bubbles, and promising to have a quick mimosa in the morning with the now-fairly-flat wine.

Thanks to Kim for providing these fab flutes….from the Patchogue-Medford prom of 1991! (Apparently yes, they gave out champagne glasses at the h.s. prom back in the day!)

But morning comes and goes and kids need tending and driving around and there’s just no time or place for that mimosa. And yet you can’t just toss the remaining wine!

Here’s how to salvage the bubbles in your bubbly.

Drop 2-3 raisins in the glass you intend to drink from. Pour in the prosecco or champagne. Watch as bubbles miraculously surround the raisins and begin to stream to the top, just like last night!

What is happening? The CO2 that makes the bubbles in sparkling wines will be attracted to the raisins, accumulate there and form bubbles that head upward. Et voila, the sparkle is back in your life!

Notes: 1) Some folks put the raisins in the bottle just as the wine is getting flat. I haven’t tried this, but would love to know if you have. 2) Also, some folks will toss a raisin in a fresh glass of champagne to watch the raisin float hypnotically up and down the glass, akin to watching a lava lamp or a fish tank. 3) I prefer prosecco to champagne these days for its softness, price, and lower alcohol content. 4) prosecco mixes wonderfully with many different fruit juices!

Look at that plume pf bubbles!

Tags: champagne, fizzy drinks, prosecco, saving bubbles

Comments 6 Comments
Categories Cocktails, Entertaining, Vegan, Vegetarian

6 Responses to “Revive Prosecco or Champagne Bubbles with Raisins”

Karen July 18, 2013 at 12:07 pm #

What a great tip…I like the bubbles!

Reply
Conor Bofin July 17, 2013 at 5:37 pm #

Excellent idea. Better than drinking the bottle and then throwing the lava lamp into the fish tank.
Best,
Conor

Reply
Mad Dog July 16, 2013 at 3:40 pm #

Genius!

Reply
- Natalia at Hot, Cheap & Easy July 17, 2013 at 9:30 am #
  
  quite.
  
  Reply
Natalia at Hot, Cheap & Easy July 17, 2013 at 9:29 am #

Thanks for the link up…

Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

2014 PROSECCO WINE GIFTS Review - July 16, 2013
[…] Revive Prosecco or Champagne Bubbles with Raisins | Hot, Cheap … […]

Talk foodie to me, baby... Cancel reply

¡Comida Hispana! Recipes to unleash your inner Latino

Mango Mojitos With Ancho Chili Salt

It was another summer Friday in the neighborhood and that called for another festive cocktail. Riding high on the success of last session’s passionfruit mojitos, I decided to make mango mojitos. The drink itself followed much the same construction, but the mango was decidedly sweeter than the passionfruit, so I decided that it needed a […]
Passionfruit Mojitos by the Pitcher or Glass

Summer evenings in the neighborhood can be wonderful. Occasionally on a Friday some of us neighbors bring out folding chairs and sit together in one front yard for a bit of happy hour while the kids go mental on someone else’s lawn. It’s pretty much BYO, but we do mix up a pitcher of experimental […]
KID IN THE KITCHEN: Tembleque (Tropical Coconut Pudding)

We spent the better part of last summer in Puerto Rico, and among the tasty things that my little guy fell in love with was tembleque, a jiggly (temblar means to tremble) dessert that falls somewhere between pudding and flan. I promised him we’d make it back in New York, and this weekend, for a […]
Sangría Tropical (and rainforest paradise pictures)

When the heat gets tropical, so should the drinks. On a recent trip to the mountains of Puerto Rico, I was inspired by a wonderfully cooling and exotic sangría I had up around and about El Yumque (Caribbean National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service system) at Noelia’s, recommended to us […]
Salmorejo de jueyes (Land Crab Stew)

There are a number of land crab species skittering about Caribbean coastlines. Some are edible and the one we eat most here in Puerto Rico (although I am told they mostly are imported from Venezuela these days) is Cardisoma guanhumi which we call juey and — if you are English-speaking — you might call the […]