Paint your mimosa red for the holidays! Make your New Year’s Eve (or any party) special by peppering it with easy Champagne Cocktails.
Does making cocktails for holiday parties seem overwhelming? With this guide, we set you up to make six different delicious Champagne cocktails with just nine ingredients.
Just Nine Ingredients
Here are the nine simple ingredients that you’ll need to make these easy champagne cocktails:
- Lemons
- Frozen cranberries (get a bag or two of fresh ones and stick them in your freezer)
- Oranges (one recipe, the one I’m giving today, calls for freshly squeezed OJ, which you will use the oranges for. But if you want, tack on an extra ingredient to your grocery list and get some store-bought “Not From Concentrate” Pulp-Free OJ. It’s nearly as good and will save you a bit of time.)
- Orange liqueur (my favorite is Cointreau, but you can also use Grand Marnier or Triple Sec)
- Grenadine (a sweet red syrup sold in most grocery stores. Mine is sold near the wine section. In our old Toronto grocery store it was sold near the bottled water where there was a selection of syrups for adding to drinks).
- Stout beer (like Guinness)
- Gin
- Brandy
- And of course, some sparkling wine. No need to spend a truckload on fancy stuff. Nice bottles of the Italian version of Champagne, called Prosecco (around $12/bottle), or the Spanish version, called Cava (sometimes as low as $10), or even some dry bubbly from California or Australia will work. My Advice: Go now and buy a bottle of what you think you’d like to have at your party. Chill it really really well and then try it. For the cocktails you want something dry, not sweet. But it’s o.k. if it has some background fruit flavors. Most importantly, make sure that you like it. If you do, then you’ll like your cocktails too.
Easy Champagne Cocktails
Here are the champagne cocktails that you will be able to create with the list of ingredients above.
Paint Your Mimosa Red (recipe below)
The Pink French 75
Sparkling Sangria
Paint Your Mimosa Red
I’ve started with this cocktail because it is also great for a festive brunch. You can totally serve it in the evening at your New Year’s Party, but it will work just as well if you’re having friends over the next morning or anytime during the holidays.
While a classic mimosa just adds orange juice to the Champagne, we’re adding some extra color and flavor with grenadine and lemon juice. Yum!
Here’s Easy Champagne Cocktail #1: Paint Your Mimosa Red
PrintPaint Your Mimosa Red
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 2 minutes
- Yield: 1 serving 1x
- Category: Drink
- Method: Mix
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
This drink is just a little twist on the classic Mimosa. You’ve still got your orange and bubbly in there, but there’s also some extra sweetness (and redness!) from the grenadine and a bit of puckering lemon to balance it out.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup of dry sparkling wine
- 1/3 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice (or store-bought “Not From Concentrate” OJ, best to get the kind without pulp)
- 1 Tbsp. of grenadine
- 1 Tbsp. of fresh squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
- Pour the sparkling wine into a port glass or a small wine glass. Add the orange juice and then the grenadine and the lemon. The grenadine likes to go sailing down to the bottom of the drink making for a nice striping-sunset effect. But the result is an overly sour drink.
- Serve it with a stir stick so that people will know to stir the red sweetness up from the bottom to balance out the lemon.
This post originally appeared in December 2012 and was revised and republished in December 2020.
Jane says
I love this twist on the usual Mimosa. In fact, I think I’m going to paint all my Mimosas red from now on! Great idea!
Lauren @ A Nerd Cooks says
The simplest cocktails are often the best, in my opinion. This sounds tasty, and looks quite fetive!
Christine Pittman says
Thanks Lauren! I agree completely. The most simple things are usually the best things. I hope you have a very Happy New Year!