Latest / The Monégasque Table / Snow Globe Cocktail With Edible Glitter: Shake It In, Freeze the Glass
Transcript
- Dana: 6 hours. That's how long the glass for this drink sits in the freezer before anybody pours anything into it. I saw the video and nobody mentioned the 6 hours. Margaux: Welcome to The Monégasque Table. Today's question is the holiday drink everybody's saving to their phones: how do you make a snow globe cocktail with edible glitter? Dana: And specifically, where the glitter goes. Because in the video it just sort of swirls inside a little frozen winter scene and I want to know what's doing the swirling. Margaux: Here's the answer up front. The glitter goes in the shaker, not on top. The version I read is a rosemary vodka collins from a cocktail blog: 2 ounces vodka, 3/4 ounce rosemary syrup, 1/2 ounce lemon juice, 4 ounces club soda, and a dash of edible glitter. The glitter goes into the shaker with the vodka, the syrup, the lemon and the ice, and you shake hard until it's well chilled. Then the club soda goes in, and you strain it into the glass. The snow globe part is the glass itself: a clear stemless wine glass with shredded coconut and cranberries covering the bottom, about an inch of water, and a rosemary sprig standing up in the middle like a little tree, frozen solid. So the glitter makes the snow, the glass makes the globe. Dana: And the glass is the 6 hours. Margaux: About 6 hours in the freezer, and the recipe says check the sprig around 30 minutes in, because it likes to fall over. It says make the glasses the day before. Dana: Sparkle Lab. Why the shaker? Why not just drop a pinch on top like I do with everything? Margaux: Because a pinch on top sits on top. Shaking with ice spreads the glitter through the spirit and the citrus before the soda goes in, so when you pour, it's already moving through the whole drink. That's your snowfall. Drop it on a finished drink and you get a little floating raft on the surface that you have to stir in anyway, after the drink is already built. Dana: Dust or flake? For snow. Margaux: Flake. Glitter flake runs 50 to 500 microns, and it's the format built to stay visible and suspended in a drink. That's what reads as falling snow. Luster dust is 5 to 25 microns and gives a smooth shimmer, the silky swirl you see when you stir. Lovely in a martini. In a snow globe, you want separate flakes you can see from across the room, so: white or silver flake. Dana: And clear matters, I assume. You can't see snow in a cranberry juice. Margaux: Clear matters a lot. An analysis of about 2,400 category reviews has buyers saying glitter works best with clear drinks. A collins is pale and clear, the coconut is white, the cranberries are red at the bottom. It's a drink designed for the flakes to show. Swap in a dark mixer and you've built a globe nobody can see into. Dana: How much is a dash? Because a dash from me is generous. Margaux: The recipe says a dash. The printed serving on a drink-glitter jar is 0.1 grams, and the listing says you can double it for a richer color. For a snow globe, I'd start at the printed 0.1 grams and only go richer if the snow looks thin in your glass. Put 0.1 grams on a kitchen scale once and look at it. That little pile is your dash. Dana: And here's the disagreement. I'd eyeball it. It's a party. Nobody's weighing things at a party. Margaux: And I'd weigh it once, before the party, so your eye knows what 0.1 grams looks like. After that, eyeball away. One weigh-in buys you a whole night of good guesses. Dana: Fine. One weigh-in. Margaux: And one note on the drink itself. The listing for this pigment in the federal color-additive rules, 21 CFR 73.350, has a beverage entry that names cocktails. That's what this is: a vodka collins. The same blog page offers a non-alcoholic version, and the beverage entry carves out drinks that are typically consumed without added alcohol, so this show builds the cocktail. And if the snow globe drink you saw online was topped with sparkling wine, the entry doesn't name wine either. The collins is the one we'd make. Dana: My round. 6 hours in the freezer, per glass, and the glass is a stemless wine glass with water and coconut frozen into the bottom. I'm hosting 12 people. My freezer holds a bag of peas, an ice tray and something from 2024 I'm afraid to look at. I am not fitting 12 wine glasses in there, standing perfectly flat, for 6 hours. Margaux: That's the round you win, and I think you've just fixed the recipe for real life. The snow globe glass is a showpiece, not a production line. So: make 2 or 3 globe glasses for the first round, the reveal, the photo. Everybody else gets the same shaken cocktail, same glitter, same snow, in a plain clear glass. The snow is in the drink. The globe is the frame. Dana: So the glitter does the work in every glass, and the frozen ones are for the camera. Margaux: Exactly. And if you really want 12 globes, it's a 2-day freezer rotation, which is the recipe's own advice anyway: make them the day before. Dana: What about the rosemary syrup? Is that a whole thing? Margaux: It's sugar, water and rosemary, and the recipe makes it on the stove. It's the herbal note that makes this taste like a tree farm instead of a lemonade. You can make it ahead. The glitter doesn't care either way. It goes in the shaker with whatever syrup you use. Dana: Who should skip it? Margaux: 3 skips. If your party drink is a dark, red, or creamy cocktail, skip the snow globe, because you can't see snow in it. If you can't free up a flat shelf in the freezer for a day, skip the globe glasses and just serve the shaken collins in clear glasses; you keep the snow and lose the frame. And if your guests are mostly not drinking, this is a cocktail recipe, so plan something else for them rather than a glittered soft drink. Dana: Dana's Scorecard. I came in thinking the snow was some video trick. Where I landed. One: the glitter goes in the shaker with the vodka, syrup, lemon and ice, then soda, then strain. Two: white or silver flake, not dust, because snow is separate flakes. Three: clear drink, clear glass, or nobody sees the snow. Four: weigh 0.1 grams once, then eyeball, and I'll admit that's fair. Five, my round: 2 or 3 globe glasses for the reveal, plain clear glasses for everyone else. My caveat: whatever's in the back of my freezer is staying there. Margaux: Kept, gladly. The footnote: the MONÉGASQUE Snow White 10 gram drink glitter is on Amazon at $14.99, about 100 servings at the printed 0.1 grams, which is a lot of snowfall for one jar. Dana: Next time, a little bag of holiday chocolate pretzels, and whether the glitter is even the expensive part. Margaux: It's not, and the number that matters is the 3 to 5 days. One note before we go — this show is produced by the team at Monégasque, with AI-crafted hosts. See you at the table.