The Ruby Slipper is Pappadeaux’s red sparkling gin drink: elderflower liqueur, gin, strawberry puree, lemon and prosecco. It showed up in the chain’s spring promotions in 2025 and was still printed on the drink menu dated October 6, 2025. Nobody outside the bar has published the ounces. The glass below is a measured home version that keeps the wine in charge, which is what a prosecco cocktail needs at a long holiday table.
Strawberry and bubbles read as festive in November without requiring cinnamon or cranberry. Pour it before dinner, while the food is still in the oven. It is a poor match for a heavy dessert, because the puree is already the sweet part.
What the venue actually serves
On the October 6, 2025 Pappadeaux drink menu, the Ruby Slipper is listed with Fiorente elderflower liqueur, Bombay Sapphire gin, house-made strawberry puree, fresh lemon juice and prosecco. It sits among the sparkling drinks, apart from the frozen Swamp Thing and apart from the Guava Banana Mai Tai. A May 30, 2025 post from the chain named the same ingredients and framed the drink as a spring pour. By October it was still on the printed menu.
That is the whole public record used here. No jigger measurements, no stated price, no garnish, no glass. This draft also did not find a public menu from November 2026 confirming the drink at every location. If you are going to the restaurant for it, call first.
House strawberry puree is the unknown. It may be barely sweetened fruit, or it may be close to a syrup. The recipe uses 3/4 oz (22 ml) of a puree you can taste. If yours is candy-sweet, cut it to 1/2 oz (15 ml) and add a teaspoon of water.
Why Typical Copycats Turn It Into Jam
The usual strawberry-prosecco drink is a mimosa with a spoon of jam in it. That fails this ingredient list in three ways.
First, the gin disappears. An ounce is enough for juniper to show under ripe strawberry. Two ounces, plus a sweet puree, plus elderflower, becomes a sticky sour that the prosecco cannot lift. The menu includes a named gin, so the drink should taste like gin.
Second, the puree is treated as unlimited. House puree at a restaurant is portioned. At home, people pour until the glass looks red. Past 3/4 oz, seeds and body kill the bubbles and the lemon tastes lost. Lemon is doing the work of a sour. Half an ounce is the start. Add another teaspoon only after you taste.
Third, the prosecco gets shaken or poured warm. Either mistake makes a flat pink juice. Shake the still ingredients. Open the wine at the end. Brut, not extra-dry or doux. Elderflower liqueur and strawberry already supply the sugar.
A tall glass of sweet sparkling wine over ice is a different cocktail. So is a strawberry gin fizz lengthened with soda. Both can be good. Neither is this list of ingredients.
The Key Technique: Shake the Sour, Save the Bubbles
Chill the wine glass and the bottle. Combine gin, elderflower liqueur, puree and lemon with ice and shake just long enough to chill, about 8 seconds. A longer shake melts too much ice into a drink that is about to be lengthened with wine.
Double-strain. Strawberry seeds look like grit in a clear sparkling drink, and a clump of puree will sit on the bottom until the last sour sip.
Pour 3 oz (90 ml) of brut prosecco down the side of the glass. Stir once from the bottom. A second and third stir buys you nothing but smaller bubbles. Serve at once. A strawberry slice is a home garnish so guests can see the flavor. The menu does not require it.
If the drink tastes dull, the puree was the problem, or the prosecco was not cold. Fix the next one with sharper lemon or a drier bottle before you add more gin.
A Batch for a Holiday Table
For eight drinks, stir 8 oz (240 ml) gin, 4 oz (120 ml) elderflower liqueur, 6 oz (180 ml) strawberry puree and 4 oz (120 ml) lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate up to one day. The lemon will fade if you hold it longer.
Keep two 375 ml bottles of brut prosecco cold, or one 750 ml bottle. Each drink needs 3 oz (90 ml) of wine, so eight drinks need 24 oz (720 ml). At the table, shake 2 3/4 oz (80 ml) of the still mix with ice, strain into a chilled glass, and add the prosecco. Do not put sparkling wine in the pitcher. It will be flat before the second round.
For Thanksgiving or Christmas, this batch waits in the fridge while you deal with the food. The shaking takes a minute a glass. For New Year’s Eve, build the glasses as people arrive rather than lining up eight flutes that die on a tray.
The Ruby Slipper Mocktail
Take the alcohol out and you have strawberry lemonade unless you replace both the gin and the wine. A 0.0% gin keeps a botanical edge. Elderflower syrup, at 1/2 oz, stands in for the liqueur and supplies the perfume. Lemon stays. A sparkling wine marked 0.0% is the right topper. Soda water works if that is all you have, but the drink will taste thinner and less like a toast.
Strong cold jasmine tea is a fair pantry stand-in for the 0.0% gin: use 1 oz, and keep the lemon. Read labels if a guest needs a drink with no alcohol at all. “Nonalcoholic” and “0.0%” are not always the same claim.
The cocktail is about 1.4 standard drinks. The fruit makes it taste lighter than it is. Serve food with it, and do not line the glasses up an hour early.
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