Mimosa

If you are looking for a refreshing cocktail to elevate your taste buds and give a splendid start to a leisurely or celebratory Sunday, there is no drink that serves better than the classic brunch cocktail Mimosa. Traditionally made from an equal mixture of champagne and chilled orange juice, this exquisite concoction can also be created from other sparkling wines and citrus variants. The drink is named after the Mimosa plant Acacia dealbata, known for its flowers bearing the same golden-yellow hue as the drink. It is customary to serve the drink in a tall champagne flute at weddings and brunch gatherings.

The popular perception with respect to the origin of this celebratory sip is the revered Buck’s Fizz cocktail invented in 1921 at Bucks Club in London. The main difference between the former and the Mimosa is in the ratio of the chief components. While the Buck’s Fizz uses twice as much champagne as orange juice, the Mimosa is made from equal proportions of the fluid ingredients.

It is believed that a bartender by the name of Frank Meier experimenting with the Buck’s Fizz recipe created the Mimosa in 1925 at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. He even noted down the recipe in his book The Artistry of Mixing Drinks, which serves as the Holy Bible of cocktails to this day. There is another contrasting narrative, which claims that the legendary American director Alfred Hitchcock may have invented the drink in the 1940s. Though it is uncertain whether the Hollywood giant can be credited with conceiving the drink, the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drinks claims that Hitchcock was undoubtedly the one behind the mass popularisation of the cocktail as a brunch drink in the United States.

While the Mimosa is relished in its original iteration of ingredients to the modern day, many variations have emerged over the course of the 20th century. For instance, the Poinsettia is a variant of the Mimosa made with cranberry juice instead of orange. The lemonade variant is called the Lemosa, which adds a small amount of blueberry syrup to heighten the flavours. While the Vermosa uses apple cider vinegar, the Flirtini uses pineapple juice and the Megmosa uses grapes.