Not a quieter wine. A different drink.
What Celebration Water is
A premium sparkling beverage made for the moment a room decides something is worth marking. It arrives in the bottle that moment expects: 750 mL, natural cork, wire cage, full pressure. Shake it, spray it, pour it, hand it to anyone standing there.
Not a wine with something taken out. Not a substitute, an alternative or an apology. Its own drink, for the win.
Light, lively, elegantly effervescent, and under half a percent.
What’s in it
Muskoka spring water first, and most. Delicate white tea and green tea for length. Then a measure of Vidal Late Harvest for fruit and body, enough to give it a middle, never enough to make it a wine.
It drinks crisp. Peach and mango arrive on their own, quietly, with nothing sweet chasing them, and the finish stays clean.
The bottle
A screw cap is a different ceremony. This one takes a shake and gives it back.
Pop it. Pour it. Celebrate the win.
Where it starts.
Cold, and in the right glass.
Cold is doing most of the work in this one. Chill it properly and it stays crisp all the way down. Six to nine degrees, a tulip rather than a flute, and the bottle opened with a sigh instead of a bang unless you mean it.
- Chill it properly
Six to nine degrees. Ninety minutes in the fridge from room temperature, or fifteen to twenty minutes in an ice-and-water bath. Water, not just ice; ice alone barely touches it.
- Strip the foil, keep the cage
Six half-turns loosens the wire. Leave the cage on, and keep a thumb over the cork from here on.
- Turn the bottle, not the cork
Hold the cork still and twist the base. Ease it out with a sigh if you are pouring. Let it go if you are spraying.
- Pour into a tulip
Down the side of a tilted glass, so you keep the foam. A flute kills the smell of it and a coupe kills the bubbles. A tulip holds both.
Ninety minutes in the fridge from room temperature, or fifteen to twenty minutes in an ice-and-water bath. Water, not just ice. Ice alone barely touches it.
Not a flute. The opening is too narrow to let anything out. A tulip gives the bead room to climb and funnels the aromatics toward you. Coupes are for the trophy photograph, and that’s a perfectly good reason to use one.
In the fridge, with a proper sparkling stopper. A teaspoon in the neck does nothing; that one is folklore.
Five of them, measured in oz and ml.
The Podium
4 oz / 120 ml Victory Mist · ½ oz / 15 ml blackcurrant shrub
Tulip · blackcurrant or a twist of lemon
Build in the glass, shrub first, then pour slowly down the side.
Why it works. A Kir needs a base bright enough to carry blackcurrant without going flat under it. This one is not sweet to start with, so the fruit stays sharp instead of turning syrupy.
The Spritz
3 oz / 90 ml Victory Mist · 2 oz / 60 ml bitter apéritif · splash of soda
Big glass, plenty of ice, orange slice
Build over ice, stir once, don’t fuss it.
Why it works. A spritz is 3:2:1, sparkling to bitter to soda, and that ratio is the whole drink. Keep it. The bitter edge gives it grip and the peach underneath stops it tasting medicinal.
The Bellini
4 oz / 120 ml Victory Mist · 2 oz / 60 ml white peach purée
Flute or tulip · no garnish
Purée in first, then pour slowly and stir gently.
Why it works. Cipriani’s original is 2:1 and adds no sugar. There is already peach in the bottle, so the purée is amplifying something that is there rather than covering something that isn’t.
The Cage
2 oz / 60 ml verjus · ½ oz / 15 ml lemon · ¼ oz / 7 ml honey syrup · top with 3 oz / 90 ml Victory Mist
Tulip · no ice
Stir the base until the honey is gone, then top.
Why it works. Verjus is sharp without being sour, so it stretches the drink out without sweetening it. The honey is there to take the edge off, not to make it a dessert.
The Cooldown
¾ oz / 22 ml rosemary-grapefruit cordial · top with 4 oz / 120 ml Victory Mist
Tulip · rosemary sprig, clapped
Cordial first, top slowly, clap the rosemary between your palms before it goes in.
Why it works. Rosemary and grapefruit are carrying the smell of this one. Clap the rosemary between your palms first. Dropped in whole it does almost nothing.
Or read the honest answers first.
The words we use.
Canada sets the bar for “non-alcoholic” and “alcohol-free” at under 0.05% alcohol by volume, ten times stricter than the United States, the EU and the international Codex standard, which all sit at 0.5%.
This bottle is under 0.5%, not under 0.05%. So we don’t use those words, even though most of the category does and even though it is the phrase people search for. We put the actual number on the front of the bottle instead, and we say what it is: a Celebration Water, at less than 0.5% alc./vol.