Rhubarb Bellini - spritz up your weekend!

Sparkling rhubarb Bellini, the cocktail of Spring

Rhubarb Bellini Cocktail – a reason to celebrate!

Another way to use the delicious spring rhubarb and a wonderfully simple and slightly unusual cocktail to offer to your friends at your Summer Garden Party. Hop over to my Summer of Six pages for some Street Food recipes to provide at the same time.

The original Bellini was invented by Giuseppe Cipriani of Harry’s Bar in Venice in the late 1930s, so it’s not from the deep mists of time like the G&T. It was first made with a puree of white peaches which had been marinated in sweet wine, topped up with prosecco. Nowadays, any sweet fruit puree mixed with prosecco can be called a Bellini, and it’s very pleasant to make seasonal and local variations, sweet white peaches being in short supply in Manchester in May.

Use the Rhubarb Cordial for which I gave the recipe for earlier this month (search for May recipes or Treat recipes on the index for the blog recipes) and some rhubarb puree.  Cook cleaned rhubarb chunks with sugar and only a tablespoon of water for 10 minutes and puree in a blender until smooth.  If you have more puree than you need for your cocktails then it is also delicious with plain yoghurt or mixed up with whipped cream for a rhubarb fool. There is no end to the uses of rhubarb.

You can make the mix up in advance and keep it cool in the fridge, awaiting your guests. The mixture does tend to separate so you’ll need to stir it up again before serving. If you’ve made too much Bellini, you can always freeze the cordial/puree mixture for another time.  You could dress the glass with a frozen raspberry or something but it looks so pretty as it is, why bother?  Use your time to make another instead.
 
Serves 6               Timings:  1 hour, if using cordial you made ahead and are keeping in the cupboard against just this eventuality.
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• Bottles chilled prosecco - however many you think you can reasonably get through...
  
• 600ml rhubarb puree (see above)
  
• 300ml rhubarb cordial (see the recipe on my website from May 2021)

Either make up a jug of bellini mixture – 2/3 puree to 1/3 cordial or use 2 teaspoons puree and 1 teaspoon cordial in a glass or flute and top up with prosecco.