Flirtini

Never. Shake the vodka, pineapple and orange liqueur with ice, strain into a chilled glass, then pour the champagne down the side. Carbonation in a sealed tin builds pressure and can blow it apart, and if it doesn't, you've flattened the wine anyway.

Not much. Pineapple juice buries anything delicate, so a brut cava or cremant at supermarket money is the sensible call. Keep it dry rather than demi-sec, since the juice and the liqueur have the sugar covered. Save real champagne for drinking on its own.

Not much for flavor, quite a lot for strength. Thirty milliliters takes a glass of fizzy juice up to something that drinks like a cocktail, without adding a taste of its own. Leave it out and you have a pineapple mimosa, which is a fair drink and a much weaker one.

Protein from the pineapple builds that head, and it falls within a minute or two, faster in a warm glass. Chill the glass in the freezer first and pour the champagne last and slowly, so you're rebuilding the foam rather than knocking it down.

A classic Flirtini calls for 30 ml (1 oz) Vodka, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Triple sec / Cointreau, 30 ml (1 oz) Pineapple juice, 60 ml (2 oz) Champagne. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Flirtini is roughly 17% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it about as strong as a glass of wine.

Serve a Flirtini in a large wine glass, well chilled — this drink is served without ice, so a cold glass keeps it cold.