Mimosa – Original Recipe & History

The History Of The Mimosa.

The story goes that this was invented in 1925 by Frank Meier at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The oldest printed recipe from a book that I could find for the mimosa is Frank Meier’s own 1936 book “The Artistry of Mixing Drinks.” There he refers to it as a Mimosa or a Champagne Orange. The 1936 recipe is equal parts orange juice and Champagne and no different than how they are made today.

The Mimosa is a variation of another cocktail called the Buck’s Fizz. A Buck’s Fizz is two parts champagne with 1 part orange juice, which are the proportions most prefer. The Buck’s Fizz was invented at the Buck Club in 1921 in London by Barman Malachy McGarry. The earliest printed recipe for Buck’s Fizz I can find is from the 1937 Cafe Royal Cocktail Book. In fact, it’s hard to find the mimosa recipe in any cocktail book printed before the 1970s. Outside of Frank Meiers own book, I only found it in one other book. I also found it in the 1948 book “The Fine Art of Mixing” by David Embury. He states the mimosa is also called a Bismark, but I could not find anyone else calling it that. But on the other hand, I found a few books referencing a Buck’s Fizz until the 1970s.

So how did the Buck’s Fizz fade from memory and the Mimosa become universally known? Hollywood, of course. Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite cocktail was the Mimosa. In a 1966 interview for the London Express, the author noted he met Alfred Hitchcock “In fine form, drinking mimosas and smoking an eight-inch cigar.” Other celebrities followed suit, and in no time, the Mimosa became the Cosmopolitan of the late 1960s.

Recipe Resources

• 1936 The Artistry Of Mixed Drinks – Meier