Spiced Rum & Cherry Sparkling Cocktail

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What Is a Spiced Rum & Cherry Sparkling Cocktail?

The Spiced Rum & Cherry Sparkling Cocktail is a celebratory, holiday-leaning drink that pairs warmly spiced rum with the honeyed, citrus-vanilla complexity of Licor 43, a touch of demerara sweetness, a dash of cherry bitters, and a generous top of dry sparkling wine. Created by bartender Todd Thrasher of PX in Alexandria, Virginia, and published by Tasting Table, it's built like a spirit-forward base cocktail that gets topped and lightened with bubbles, similar in structure to a Champagne Cocktail but with a warmer, spicier backbone.

It's the kind of drink that reads as festive without being cloying — dressed up enough for a holiday party or a New Year's toast, but built on genuinely balanced proportions rather than pure sugar and fizz.

Flavor Profile

The base of shaken spiced rum, Licor 43, demerara syrup, and cherry bitters is rich and a little dessert-like on its own — clove and vanilla from the rum, honeyed citrus and caramel from the Licor 43, and a dark cherry note running underneath from the bitters. Topping that mixture with dry sparkling wine changes the character entirely: the wine's acidity and effervescence lift the drink, cutting through the richness and turning what would otherwise be a heavy sipper into something bright and celebratory. The Luxardo cherry garnish reinforces the bitters' fruit note and gives you a boozy, syrup-soaked treat to enjoy once the drink is gone.

Overall it drinks less sweet than its ingredient list might suggest, thanks to both the dry sparkling wine and the bitters' restraining influence — closer in spirit to a well-balanced French 75 than to a sugary punch.

Licor 43's Role

Licor 43 (Cuarenta y Tres) is a Spanish liqueur made from a blend of 43 ingredients, predominantly citrus and vanilla, giving it a flavor somewhere between orange liqueur and vanilla bean syrup. It's a natural partner for spiced rum because both spirits share a vanilla backbone, but Licor 43 adds a citrus lift and honeyed sweetness that plain rum lacks on its own. In this cocktail, it does a lot of the work bridging the rum's baking-spice character with the bright, dry sparkling wine on top — without it, the transition from rich base to bubbly top would feel far more abrupt.

Origin and Context

This cocktail belongs to a broader, ongoing trend of "spiced rum meets sparkling wine" drinks that gained traction as spiced rum itself became a mainstream category rather than a niche flavor. Bartenders like Thrasher have leaned into pairing rum's holiday-adjacent spice notes with celebratory sparkling wine specifically for the winter entertaining season, when hosts want something that feels more composed than a straightforward glass of Champagne but still fits a toast-friendly, bubbly format.

It sits alongside other modern sparkling-wine cocktails like the Bellini and Kir Royale in using a base flavor (here, spiced rum and cherry rather than peach or cassis) to give an otherwise simple sparkling-wine drink a distinct identity.

How It's Made

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add the spiced rum, Licor 43, demerara syrup, and cherry bitters. Shake well to chill and properly integrate the syrup and bitters, then strain into a chilled coupe glass. Top with dry sparkling wine — Cava, dry Prosecco, or a traditional-method sparkling wine all work well, as long as it's genuinely dry rather than sweet, since the base mixture already carries plenty of sweetness on its own. Garnish with a Luxardo maraschino cherry dropped into the glass.

Because the sparkling wine is added after shaking rather than shaken itself, pour it gently down the side of the glass to preserve as much carbonation as possible — vigorous pouring or stirring will flatten the bubbles quickly.

Serving Tips

Use a properly chilled coupe or flute, and chill your sparkling wine ahead of time rather than relying on ice in the glass to cool it, since dilution from ice will blunt both the wine's effervescence and the drink's balance. This is a cocktail best made and served immediately rather than batched ahead, given how quickly sparkling wine loses its fizz once poured.

Variations

If Licor 43 isn't available, an orange liqueur cut with a touch of vanilla syrup can approximate its flavor profile, though the result will be noticeably less rounded. Swapping cherry bitters for orange bitters shifts the drink toward a more citrus-forward, less fruity finish, while using a sweeter sparkling wine (if that's what's on hand) means you should cut back on the demerara syrup to keep the whole drink from tipping too sweet.

Food Pairings and Occasions

This cocktail was built for celebration — think New Year's Eve toasts, holiday parties, or a festive brunch alternative to a standard mimosa. It pairs beautifully with the same foods you'd serve alongside Champagne: soft cheeses, charcuterie, smoked salmon, or light desserts like shortbread and spiced cookies that echo the rum's baking-spice notes. Its dressed-up presentation also makes it a strong choice for a signature cocktail at a winter wedding or engagement celebration.

Why People Like It

The Spiced Rum & Cherry Sparkling Cocktail gives drinkers the celebratory lift of a Champagne cocktail with more going on underneath — real spirit character, a fruit-forward bitters note, and a citrus-vanilla liqueur doing quiet, important work to hold it all together. It looks and feels festive without asking guests to sacrifice flavor for spectacle, which makes it an easy sell at any gathering built around a toast. For readers who want to explore more sparkling-wine cocktails, our Sparkling Wine Spritzer and Christmas Punch recipes make good companions on a holiday drink menu, and the Wikipedia entry on Licor 43 is a great resource for anyone curious about the liqueur's history and broader uses behind the bar.