2-Ingredient Fall Mimosa with Apple Cider and Sparkling Wine

Cold apple cider and dry sparkling wine in a chilled flute, and that is the entire drink. The cider carries the orchard sweetness and the bubbles cut straight through it, so this fall mimosa tastes like the season without tasting like syrup.

Two ingredients, one glass, and about a minute of actual work.

Grab your flute and let’s make it.

Why You’ll Love This One

• Two ingredients, and you buy both of them ready to pour.
• About a minute a glass once everything is cold.
• One bottle of bubbles pours roughly eight drinks, so a full table is covered.
• It carries you from the first cold weekend in September straight through to Thanksgiving morning.
• Easy to pour alcohol-free so nobody sits out the toast.

When and Who This Is For

This is for the first morning you reach for a sweater and want the table to feel like an occasion without having to earn it. A few moments it fits:

• Thanksgiving morning, oven already on, guests still arriving
• Friendsgiving, poured before anyone has eaten anything
• A slow Sunday where you’d rather be sitting down than standing at the stove

It’s naturally dairy free, gluten free, egg free and nut free. If you need it fully vegan, the variable is the bottle, since some sparkling wines are clarified with egg white or isinglass while plenty of others are labeled vegan on the back. For anyone not drinking, non-alcoholic sparkling wine or sparkling cider both work here.

What You Need for This Fall Mimosa Recipe

• 3 oz (90 ml) apple cider, well chilled
• 3 oz (90 ml) brut sparkling wine, well chilled (Champagne, Cava or Prosecco)

Apple cider. Reach for the cloudy, refrigerated kind rather than shelf-stable clear juice. You’ll usually find it in the refrigerated section rather than the juice aisle. Apple juice is mostly sweetened and made from concentrate, so it dulls the drink and pushes it toward breakfast, while cider brings tartness and a little body. That’s what makes this taste like autumn instead of just sweet.

Brut sparkling wine. The labels run backwards from what you’d expect, so this one is worth knowing. Brut is the dry end of the scale, and anything marked extra dry is actually sweeter than brut, with sec, demi-sec and doux sweeter again. The cider is already bringing plenty of sugar, so brut is what keeps the glass from tipping into dessert. Prosecco runs a touch fruitier and Cava is usually the cheapest of the three.

How to Make It

1. Chill everything first. Cider, bottle and flutes go in the fridge for at least 2 hours. This is the only part that takes any time and it decides whether the drink is good, because warmer liquid holds far less carbonation and goes flat fast. I keep the cider in the fridge from the day I buy it, so the wine is usually the only thing I’m waiting on.
   
2. Pour the cider. Tilt the flute to roughly 45 degrees and add 3 oz (90 ml), which fills it about halfway.
   
3. Top with the sparkling wine. Add 3 oz (90 ml) slowly, glass still tilted. Slow is the whole trick, since sparkling wine poured fast into liquid foams straight over the rim. Because the cider went in first, the bubbles rising through it do the mixing for you and nothing needs stirring.
   
4. Taste before anything else. Ciders vary a lot in sweetness. Too sweet, add a squeeze of lemon. Too dry, stir in a splash of maple syrup or cinnamon simple syrup.
   
5. Serve straight away. It’s good exactly as it is, nothing on the rim and nothing in the glass. If you want to dress it up, the cinnamon sugar rim is the one worth doing.

Tips for Getting It Right

There isn’t much to this fall mimosa recipe, so the few things that matter, matter a lot.

• Skip the ice. It waters the drink down as it melts, and a flute is small enough that the chill holds anyway.
  
• Keep a stopper in the bottle between pours. An open bottle sitting on the counter loses its fizz quickly, and that’s usually why the second round tastes flatter than the first.
  
• If it tastes sweet even after a squeeze of lemon, shift to 2 parts sparkling wine to 1 part cider. Cider is denser and less acidic than orange juice, so it can take over a glass in a way orange juice doesn’t.
  
• Cut apple slices at the last minute, or dunk them in lemon juice or lightly salted water first. They brown fast, and a party runs longer than a slice of apple stays pretty.
  
• For a crowd, one 750 ml bottle plus 3 cups (720 ml) of cider makes about 8 drinks. Keep them apart until people actually arrive, then pour.

How to Set Up a Fall Mimosa Bar

The easiest way to serve these to a group is to stop making them entirely and let people pour their own. A setup like this takes about ten minutes and frees you from standing at the counter with a bottle all morning.

Put out:

• Chilled cider in a carafe, plus one other juice if you want variety
• Two bottles of brut in an ice bucket, plus one non-alcoholic bottle
• Flutes, already chilled
• Small bowls of garnishes with picks: apple slices in lemon water, fresh cranberries, rosemary sprigs, cinnamon sticks
• A shallow dish of cinnamon sugar for rimming

Plan on two to three drinks per person over a couple of hours, which works out to roughly one bottle for every three guests. It’s the simplest way to build a fall themed mimosa bar without actually making anything.

For food, it sits best beside something savory and salty, since the drink is handling all the sweetness already. Baked eggs, a cheese board, or anything with bacon in it.

Variations Worth Trying

Cinnamon sugar rim. Wet the rim with a wedge of apple, then dip it in cinnamon sugar mixed at roughly one part cinnamon to four parts sugar. You get warm spice on every sip, which turns it into more of a spiced fall mimosa without touching the pour itself.

Caramel rim. Warm a spoonful of caramel until it loosens, dip the rim, then roll it in the cinnamon sugar. That’s sweet on sweet, so pair it with a very dry brut.

Other fall pours. Cider is the classic, though the same method works right across the season. Pear nectar goes soft and floral, pomegranate juice turns it deep red and tart, and cranberry is the sharpest of the group. That one has its own post here: 2-ingredient mimosas with cranberry juice. Pour two or three fall inspired mimosas side by side and you have a spread rather than a single drink.

No alcohol. Swap the sparkling wine for a non-alcoholic sparkling wine or a bottle of sparkling cider. Sparkling cider doubled up with the still cider lands sweeter, so add lemon. For a second alcohol-free option on the same table, this easy fall mocktail with cranberry juice pours straight from a pitcher.

More Fall Drinks to Pour

• 2-ingredient mimosas with cranberry juice for the sharper, more tart pour

• Apple cider whiskey cocktail for the same cider, no bubbles, much cozier

• 17 of my favorite drinks for the fall if you’re building a whole menu

Before You Pour

There’s something about handing someone a glass of this on a cold morning that makes the whole day feel planned, even when nothing else is. A two ingredient drink lets all the effort go into who’s at the table instead of what’s in the glass. Pour one for yourself while you’re at it. Save this to your fall drinks board so it’s there when the first cold snap hits. 🍂