Most of the Starlet recipes floating around the interwebs are like this one: a combination of Absinthe Mata Hari, orange vodka, and raspberry liqueur. It sounds good. The version I made actually comes from the Oscar website, but it can also be found on Drink of the Week. It was the most requested one on my Academy Awards party cocktail menu, and for good reason.

First, you combine a bunch of mint with 3/4 oz of good tequila and muddle the mint. Then pour in

• 1/2 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
• 1/2 simple syrup
• 1/2 oz lime juice

and shake all of that with a lot of ice. Because we will top it with champagne, the base has to be good and cold but without any ice in the glass. So you strain that mixture into the bottom of a champagne flute and fill it up with champagne. Then drop a mint leaf in the glass, and you have a beautiful champagne cocktail.

Girls love this drink. It is super sweet. Imagine champagne with sugar syrup and St. Germain, and you can see how sweet this is. It tastes like flavored soda water. Bubbly Kool-Aid. This stuff is good. I finished one in about 10 minutes, not even realizing that I had just downed over an oz of liquor with about 3 oz of champagne.

Try this one. You will love the smell, and everyone will fawn over the fact that they can’t even “taste the alcohol” until it’s, well, perhaps too late. That’s why we had cots set up for after the Academy Awards…