Any brand suggestions for cheap drinkable sparkling whites? I've made a bunch of different champagne cocktails for my friends, and they've become quite popular and requested!

You did do well, Mathilde makes excellent liquers.

Some more reactions:

I bottled the leftover. (I have slightly over half left)

I reheated it and added a bottle of dry white wine. People loved it! Big hit!

The keys were:
-Using dry sherry or dry madeira (two of my bottles might have been madeira that was sweet)
-Letting it sit on low (without boiling it) on the stovetop for a couple of hours with the apples floating in it
-If it comes out to sweet, cut it with dry white wine or even vodka.

Knowing how to make it now, I'm already getting requests to make it again.

I just got given a bottle of wine from a flight attendant. She bought it while she was in France.

2003 Combe Bellevue Saint-Emilion

Anyone know anything about it? I can't turn up anything on the web about Combe Bellevue other that some website out of Honk Kong which has a 2001 for sale. I'm aware of Chateau Bellevue, but not familiar with Combe Bellevue.

Here is the Honk Kong site:

http://www.maxiwines.com/en/index.php...

My bottle has the same label, although its a 2003.

Reactions:

A. Very strong
B. Too sweet for me (could be because I used two bottles dry sherry and two bottles madeira, and I tried the madeira before making it and it was sweeter than the Sherry)
C. It needs to sit on low heat for a couple hours with the apples sitting in it. This makes it taste a ton better
D. I ended up shaking some 50/50 with vodka over ice and it came out really tasty (a very nice Christmas cocktail)
E. It was a bit of an aquired taste for my guests and I had a lot leftover (which I bottled for future use. It was more popular at the end of the evening after it sat for a while and got tastier.

I bought some at Kappy's

I'm making this one

http://cocktailjen.blogspot.com/2005/...

tonight for a group of about that size (actually I'm multiplying everything by 1.5).

I'll report back and let you know what my guests thought!

Plus, since its the Causeway, you'll probably get several gallons of it for on the order of $3 (if you haven't been their portions are gigantic).