Everyone knows the Mimosa. It’s a brunch favorite, or the perfect way to ease your way into a lazy Sunday. It’s an alcoholic drink of course, but not so much so that you feel like you need a 12-step program after having one before 10AM; really they’re just champagne flutes of orange juice spiked with a glug of bubbly. They’re like Bloody Mary’s in that regard—you can justify the alcohol as a means to get more fruit into your diet.
A Buck’s Fizz is a different story. It turns the Mimosa on it’s head. Rather than spiking juice with champagne like you would for a Mimosa, with a Buck’s Fizz you’re diluting champagne a bit with some juice. The ratios are flipped, more or less. While they’re pretty popular in parts of Europe they seem widely unknown here in the States, but if you ask me that needs to change. This is how I’ve always preferred my Mimosas—I can drink orange juice any day, I want to taste the champagne!
Some people use a splash of grenadine in theirs to give it a glowing pink-orange hue, but much as I try I can’t bring myself to sully bubbly like that. That color did get me thinking though, which leads me to my Winter’s Buck’s Fizz. Instead of using regular orange juice I use blood oranges, which are in season from about December to February, more or less. They don’t have the same sweetness as a regular orange, but still have a great flavor that is almost the essence of the fruit itself. I also swap the traditional champagne for a sparkling rosé; rosés tend to be a bit sweeter, fruitier, and, in some cases, more floral, so they fit so well with the slightly tempered blood orange juice.
It’s a bit more nuanced and dare I say sophisticated; perfect for ringing in the New Year, but would still be welcome with a mile-high stack of waffles for a lazy Sunday breakfast in bed.
Knock a few of these back with me over on BLOGLOVIN’ and help me ring in 2017!
- 6 - 12 fluid ounces blood orange juice (3/4 to 1-1/2 cups, per preferance) chilled
- 1 750ml bottle sparkling rosé chilled
- Pour 1 - 2 ounces of blood orange juice into six 7.5-ounce champagne flutes. Top each one off with about 4 ounces of sparkling rosé and serve.