Buck’s Fizz
The Buck’s Fizz is the older sibling in the orange-and-champagne family, and the British one: invented in 1921 by barman Malachy McGarry at Buck’s Club in Mayfair, four years before the Ritz Paris poured its Mimosa. The club version ran the wine at twice the juice, a gentleman’s ratio for a drink designed to make morning drinking respectable, which in 1921 Mayfair counted as a public service. The heavier wine changes the character honestly. It is drier, brisker and more obviously a champagne drink wearing a splash of colour, where the Mimosa is a true half-and-half. British weddings adopted it as liturgy, Christmas mornings followed, and the name entered the national vocabulary thoroughly enough to be borrowed by a Eurovision act. At two to one the champagne is genuinely tasted rather than merely present, so the bottle earns rather more consideration here than it ever does under a Mimosa, and the drink repays it with the extra crispness that is its whole point.
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: None: it has a wedding to get to
Ingredients
100ml
Two-thirds of the glass and genuinely tasted at this ratio. Brut, cold, and worth a slightly better bottle than a Mimosa demands, because there is less juice to hide behind.
50ml
The splash of colour and morning, fresh-squeezed as everywhere in this family, and at half the Mimosa’s dose by design rather than by economy.
Instructions
Pour the cold orange juice into a chilled flute.
Top slowly with the champagne, in stages as the foam allows.
Serve immediately, and repeat as the occasion demands.
Expert Tip
Two parts wine to one of juice is the club’s ratio and the drink’s identity: drier than a Mimosa on purpose, and the reason the bottle matters more than it does in its French cousin. A cheap sparkling wine is audible here in a way it is not under a half-and-half pour. Everything else is family law. Fresh-squeezed juice, both components properly cold, and glasses assembled one at a time rather than mixed in a jug, because carbonation added early is carbonation wasted. Pour the juice first and top with the wine in stages as the foam allows, rather than the other way round: champagne poured onto juice foams over immediately, and a flute you have to wait for is a flute going flat.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Buck’s Club opened in Mayfair in 1919 and its barman Malachy McGarry had the fizz on the counter by 1921: champagne and orange juice at a ratio that kept the wine firmly in charge.
The Mimosa followed in Paris four years later at half-and-half, and the two drinks have divided the family’s territory ever since. The Fizz kept Britain, where it became fixed in the ritual of weddings and Christmas mornings, and the Mimosa took most of the rest of the world. They are far more different in the glass than four years and one ratio would suggest.
The Ratio
Two to one is the drink’s whole identity. It is brisker and noticeably drier than a Mimosa, a champagne drink first and a juice drink second, and that is a deliberate design rather than an accident of how the club happened to pour.
The consequence is that the wine has nowhere to hide. Under a half-and-half pour a mediocre sparkling wine is largely covered by the orange; at two to one it is the main thing you taste. That does not mean reaching for something expensive, but it does mean reaching for something you would drink on its own.
The Secret Ingredient
McGarry’s original reputedly included a further ingredient the club never disclosed, and a few drops of grenadine is the traditional guess. It has never been confirmed and Buck’s has never said.
The drink needs nothing beyond the two ingredients, and a few drops of grenadine is a legitimate house flourish rather than a restoration of anything. What the story really preserves is the period’s attitude to a house recipe: something worth keeping quiet about, in a club whose whole business was being somewhere other people were not.
The Occasion
Few drinks are as thoroughly institutionalised as this one. The Buck’s Fizz is British celebration liturgy, poured at weddings, at Christmas breakfasts and at every occasion where drinking before noon requires a formality to sit behind.
Its job is to be exactly the same every time, which is a genuine discipline rather than a lack of ambition. Nobody wants a surprising Buck’s Fizz at eleven in the morning at a wedding. They want a cold one, made the way it was last time, handed over without ceremony and refilled without being asked.
How to Serve It
Cold flutes, fresh juice, bottles opened as they are needed, and glasses assembled to order rather than batched in a jug. The family rules apply in full and the last one matters most: carbonation added early is carbonation wasted.
Juice first, then the wine in stages as the foam allows. At two to one a bottle serves seven, which is the kind of arithmetic weddings appreciate, and it is worth doing that sum before the toast rather than during it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a Buck’s Fizz and a Mimosa?
Ratio and birthplace. The Buck’s Fizz, London 1921, pours two parts champagne to one of orange juice; the Mimosa, Paris 1925, splits them evenly. The Fizz is the older of the two and noticeably the drier.
What was the secret ingredient?
Buck’s Club never said. McGarry’s original reputedly carried an undisclosed addition, and a few drops of grenadine is the traditional guess. The drink needs nothing beyond the two ingredients, but the mystery is part of the inheritance.
Why is it a wedding drink?
Low proof, high ceremony and morning-legal. The Fizz made drinking before noon respectable in 1921 and British occasions never looked back. Its job is to be identical every time, which is exactly what a wedding wants.
Does the champagne need to be good?
Better than for a Mimosa, yes. At two parts wine to one of juice there is much less orange to hide behind, so a mediocre sparkling wine is clearly audible. It need not be expensive, but it should be something you would drink alone.
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Mimosa
The Mimosa is equal parts sparkling wine and fresh orange juice, and the equal-parts pour is both its signature and its civilising feature. Half wine, half sunshine, low enough in strength to have three of across a morning, which is exactly what a brunch table wants. It is credited to the Ritz Paris in 1925 and named for the yellow bloom of the mimosa tree. London had got there four years earlier: Buck’s Club was pouring champagne and orange from 1921 under the name Buck’s Fizz, at two parts wine to one of juice. The two cities have disputed the territory politely ever since. The Fizz is older, and the Mimosa travelled further. There is exactly one rule and it is not about the wine. The orange juice must be fresh, and the drink is unusually unforgiving about it, because the wine’s dryness amplifies everything a carton gets wrong rather than covering for it.
Champagne Cocktail
The Champagne Cocktail is a sugar cube soaked in Angostura, dropped into a flute, given a small measure of cognac and topped with cold champagne. Jerry Thomas printed it in 1862, which makes it one of the oldest recipes still in general circulation and comfortably the oldest sparkling one. It also qualifies as a cocktail under the original 1806 definition: spirit, sugar, water and bitters. The water simply arrives as champagne, which is a considerably better joke than most drinks manage. The cube is the mechanism and the theatre at once. Dropped in whole it sits at the bottom of the glass streaming bubbles for the drink's entire life, dissolving slowly and releasing sugar and bitters as it goes, so the first mouthful is dry and the last is noticeably richer. It is the simplest piece of kinetic sculpture in the canon, and it is why the drink must be built and never stirred.
Bellini
The Bellini was born at Harry’s Bar in Venice, perfected through the 1940s by founder Giuseppe Cipriani and named in 1948 for the painter: the drink’s soft pink, Cipriani said, was the colour of a robe in a Giovanni Bellini altarpiece. White peach purée and prosecco, in a bar that also invented carpaccio and served everyone from Hemingway to Chaplin: Venice in a small, cold glass. The engineering is a single decision honoured absolutely: white peaches, not yellow, crushed and sieved to velvet, one part purée to two of prosecco, folded rather than stirred. The fruit’s floral delicacy is the drink, and every substitution, yellow fruit, bottled nectar, peach liqueur, produces something pleasant and wrong. It is the standard by which fruit-and-fizz drinks are judged and the reason most fail: the Bellini is not a recipe so much as an ingredient shown respect. In white peach season it is unbeatable; out of season, good frozen purée keeps it honest, exactly as Harry’s does.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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