Ah, champagne - just the thought of popping the cork is enough to raise the spirits! It's the perfect drink to lift the mood for any moment and make it special - as well as being an ideal ingredient for a great selection of cocktail recipes.

Champagne comes in a range of styles - the recipes here are best served using Brut (dry) champagne to ideally complement the rich flavours of the liqueur ingredients that go with them. Fear not though if you think that champagne is too expensive to use for cocktails - or if you are working to a budget - why not use an alternative such as Cava (from Spain), Blanquette de Limoux or Crémant de Bourgogne (from France) or even Prosecco (from Italy)? Any one of these dry sparkling wines will be an excellent substitute ingredient at considerably less cost.

Always try to serve champagne cocktails in flute wine glasses to bring a touch of elegance to any occasion with the minimum of effort. Also by serving the champagne in tall flutes gives the bubbles plenty of room to move from the bottom to the top of the glass. The more space the bubbles have to move in - the longer the champagne keeps its fizz!

Here goes for in-the-spirit's champagne cocktail recipe recommendations:

Blackberry Fizz - as with most of our champagne cocktail suggestions we hope you will find this is incredibly simple to make. All you need to do is add one shot of De Kuyper Blackberry liqueur into a flute glass and top up with chilled champagne. The intense flavour and colour of the ripe blackberries makes a pretty pink cocktail. If you really the blackberry tones - add a little more Blackberry liqueur to make a deep, dark pink.

Champoo - this is a light and stylish cocktail which is made with champagne plus De Kuyper Triple Sec, Disaronno Amaretto and lime juice. Add a quarter shot (or a large dash) each of De Kuyper Triple Sec and Disaronno Amaretto into a flute glass with a dash of lemon juice and top up with chilled champagne. This gives a wonderful hint of citrus flavours from the Triple Sec and the lemon with a hint of crushed apricot kernels from the Disaronno - subtle and elegant.

Cranberry Kiss - back to the simple formula of a liqueur and champagne! This easy to make cocktail needs only De Kuyper Cranberry liqueur and champagne. Pour in 2 shots of De Kuyper Cranberry liqueur into a flute glass and top up with champagne. The cocktail is a perfect pink concoction combining the sweet flavour of cranberry with the dry champagne.

Red Mist - cranberry juice and De Kuyper Cherry Brandy are the ingredients which give this cocktail such a vibrant red colour. Add one shot each of De Kuyper Cherry Brandy and cranberry juice into a flute glass and top up with chilled champagne. Stir gently and serve for a delightful combination of berry and cherry aromas and flavours with a hint of almonds (that's from the crushed cherry kernels that De Kuyper use to enhance their cherry brandy recipe).

Ritz Fizz - this vivid turquoise cocktail is the combination of half a shot each of Disaronno Amaretto, De Kuyper Blue Curaçao and lime juice topped up with champagne. The intense colour the De Kuyper Blue Curaçao also brings hints of oranges which blend well with the hints of marzipan from the Disaronno for a balanced and stylish cocktail.

We hope that our winter selection of cocktails with fabulous fizz has given you some new ideas to try out - though as always, we recommend that you enjoy any cocktail recipes recommended by in-the-spirit in moderation.