Mimosa

The mimosa is one of America’s first designer cocktails. It is the American version of a Buck’s fizz. Invented in Britain in the 1920s, the Buck’s fizz is made up of equal parts orange juice and champagne plus another, disputed ingredient, such as gin, brandy, or Cointreau. Sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, the drink appeared in the United States without the disputed extra ingredients and was called the mimosa. One Hollywood legend has it that the mimosa was introduced to the United States by the British film director Alfred Hitchcock. As the story goes, Hitchcock added champagne to orange juice at a luncheon and presented it to fellow guests as a hangover cure. Perhaps this is why the mimosa is the drink of choice for brunch. The sweet and effervescent cocktail has proved the perfect accompaniment to everything from croissants and muffins to eggs and smoked salmon. In an interesting twist, as the designer cocktail reemerged on the scene in the late twentieth century, bartenders across the United States once again began to put their signatures on the mimosa by adding an additional ingredient such as tangerine juice or Cointreau.