Brunch cocktails have their own logic. They lean on juice, coffee or sparkling wine rather than straight spirit, most of them are one standard drink or less, and they are built to sit next to food. These are the nine that show up on brunch menus most often. Where the International Bartenders Association keeps an official recipe we give it verbatim, in milliliters and ounces; where it does not, we say so and give the build we use. Every drink has its origin, with the dates the record actually supports, and a standard-drink count so you know what you are pouring.
Last verified September 14, 2026. Recipes marked IBA are quoted from the International Bartenders Association’s official list; standard drinks use the NIAAA definition (0.6 fl oz of pure alcohol) and assume 12% sparkling wine and 40% spirits; calories are from USDA FoodData Central and cover only ingredients with a USDA entry; histories are from the sources listed at the end.
| Drink | Official IBA recipe? | Alcohol in the glass | Standard drinks | Calories (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mimosa | Yes | 75 mL sparkling wine | 0.5 | About 97 |
| Bloody Mary | Yes | 45 mL vodka | 1.0 | About 114 |
| Screwdriver | Was, until 2020 | 1.5 oz vodka | 1.0 | About 153 |
| Watermelon Martini | No | 2 oz vodka | 1.4 | 130 plus fruit and sugar |
| Tequila Sunrise | Yes | 45 mL tequila | 1.0 | About 140 plus grenadine |
| Irish Coffee | Yes | 50 mL Irish whiskey | 1.1 | About 296 |
| White Sangria | No | 5 oz wine plus about 0.4 oz brandy per glass | 1.3 | About 150 plus fruit and honey |
| Bellini | Yes | 100 mL Prosecco | 0.7 | About 82 plus peach |
| Greyhound | No | 1.5 oz vodka or gin | 1.0 | About 145 |
Mimosa
IBA recipe: 75 mL freshly squeezed orange juice, 75 mL Prosecco. “Pour orange juice into flute glass and gently pour the sparkling wine. Stir gently.” Orange twist optional. The IBA lists it as “also known as Buck’s Fizz,” which is the 1921 London original from Buck’s Club. In ounces that is 2.5 oz of each, and the order matters: juice first, then wine, so it does not foam over.
The Mimosa is usually credited to Frank Meier at the Ritz Paris in 1925, and there is a problem with that. Meier’s own 1936 book marks the drinks he invented with a symbol, and the Mimosa does not carry one. He joined the Ritz in 1921, the same year Buck’s Fizz appeared in London, so the fair statement is that the drink is a 1920s invention named after the yellow flowers of the mimosa tree, and that nobody has a strong claim to it. Dry sparkling wine, whether Champagne, cava or prosecco, is the usual choice because the juice brings the sugar. At the IBA’s equal-parts ratio a Mimosa is half a standard drink, which is why it is the brunch default.
Bloody Mary
IBA recipe: 45 mL vodka, 90 mL tomato juice, 15 mL fresh lemon juice, 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, celery salt and pepper to taste. “Stir gently all the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, pour into rocks glass.” Garnish with celery and a lemon wedge. In ounces: 1.5 oz vodka, 3 oz tomato juice, 0.5 oz lemon. Most US bars pour it over ice in a highball, which the IBA allows “if requested.”
Two bars claim it. Harry’s New York Bar in Paris says Fernand Petiot made the first one there in 1921 and celebrated the centenary in December 2021; Difford’s Guide points out that no Bloody Mary appears in the bar’s own 1927 recipe book or in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. The earliest print reference anyone has found is a Lucius Beebe column from December 1939 describing comedian George Jessel’s “Bloody Mary: half tomato juice, half vodka.” Petiot, by then at the St. Regis in New York (where the drink was sold as the Red Snapper from 1934), told The New Yorker in 1964 that Jessel’s version “was really nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over,” and that he added the seasonings. The garnish escalation, from celery to shrimp, bacon and pickles, is a later American habit; the drink is savory enough to carry it.
Screwdriver
No current IBA recipe. The Screwdriver was on the IBA list until the 2020 revision removed it. The common build is 1.5 oz vodka to 4 oz orange juice over ice, stirred; the old IBA spec is usually cited as 50 mL vodka to 100 mL juice, which is a stronger drink at 1.1 standard drinks against 1.0 for the bar build.
The story that American oil workers stirred it with a screwdriver is unattributed. What the record shows is Newsweek on February 21, 1944 describing “a half-orange-juice and half-vodka drink popularized by interned American aviators” in Turkey, and Time on October 24, 1949 reporting “the latest Yankee concoction of vodka and orange juice” in Istanbul bars. Smirnoff advertising carried it through the 1950s. Fresh-squeezed juice changes this drink more than the vodka does.
Watermelon Martini
No IBA recipe. It belongs to the wave of fresh-fruit “martinis” that Difford’s Guide dates to London bars in the 1990s, alongside the French Martini. Our build: shake 2 oz vodka with 2 oz fresh watermelon juice and 0.5 oz lime juice, then strain into a chilled coupe; 0.5 oz of triple sec in place of some of the lime makes a sweeter version. That is 1.4 standard drinks, the strongest drink on this page, because there is nothing but a little juice diluting the spirit. Watermelon juice separates within minutes, so make it to order.
Tequila Sunrise
IBA recipe: 45 mL tequila, 90 mL fresh orange juice, 15 mL grenadine syrup. “Pour tequila and orange juice directly into highball glass filled with ice cubes. Add the grenadine syrup to create chromatic effect (sunrise), do not stir.” Half an orange slice or a zest to garnish. In ounces: 1.5 oz tequila, 3 oz juice, 0.5 oz grenadine. The syrup sinks because it is denser than the juice, and the drink is left unstirred so the red layer stays at the bottom.
The name is older than the drink. Gene Sulit at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix made a Tequila Sunrise of tequila, crème de cassis, lime and soda in the late 1930s or early 1940s. The orange juice and grenadine version came from Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice at The Trident in Sausalito, California in the early 1970s, was served to the Rolling Stones at their 1972 tour launch party, and went national in 1973 when Jose Cuervo printed it on bottle labels and the Eagles released the song. The full history, and how the Sunset differs, is at Tequila Sunset vs Sunrise.
Irish Coffee
IBA recipe: 50 mL Irish whiskey, 120 mL hot coffee, 50 mL fresh chilled cream, 1 teaspoon sugar. “Warm black coffee is poured into a preheated Irish coffee glass. Whiskey and at least one teaspoon of sugar is added and stirred until dissolved. Fresh thick chilled cream is carefully poured over the back of a spoon held just above the surface of the coffee. The layer of cream will float on the coffee without mixing.” In ounces: 1.7 oz whiskey, 4 oz coffee, 1.7 oz cream. The cream must be unsweetened and lightly whipped or it will not float; the sugar is already in the coffee.
Joe Sheridan, the chef at the Foynes flying-boat terminal in County Limerick, is credited with the drink; the Foynes museum says he took the job in 1943 and invented it there for transatlantic passengers. It reached America through the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, which dates its version to the night of November 10, 1952, when owner Jack Koeppler and travel writer Stanton Delaplane set out to recreate the coffee Delaplane had been served at Shannon Airport. Sheridan himself moved to the Buena Vista in 1952 and died in 1962. At 296 calories, most of them from the cream, it is the heaviest drink here, and at 1.1 standard drinks it is also one of the stronger ones. An Irish cream liqueur such as Baileys in coffee is a different, sweeter and lighter drink (about 0.4 standard drinks per 1.5 oz).
White Sangria
No IBA recipe. Sangria is wine, fruit, a little sweetener and usually a spirit, left to sit so the fruit flavors the wine. The white version uses white wine in place of red. Our pitcher: one 750 mL bottle of dry white wine, 2 oz brandy, 1 to 2 tablespoons of honey or sugar, and about 3 cups of sliced peach, apple and citrus, chilled for at least two hours. Top each glass with soda water if you want it lighter. Per 5 oz glass with the brandy included that is about 1.3 standard drinks; without the brandy it is 1.0.
One legal footnote. In the European Union, “sangria” is a defined product under Regulation (EU) 251/2014: an aromatised wine-based drink of 4.5 to less than 12 percent alcohol, and the name may only be used as a sales name for products made in Spain or Portugal. Anywhere else in the EU a bottled version has to be labeled “aromatised wine-based drink” with its country of origin. The US has no standard of identity for sangria at all, so a bottled American sangria is a flavored wine product and can be any strength its label states.
Bellini
IBA recipe: 100 mL Prosecco, 50 mL white peach purée. “Pour peach puree into the mixing glass with ice, add the Prosecco wine. Stir gently and pour in a chilled flute glass.” In ounces: 3.4 oz Prosecco to 1.7 oz purée, a 2:1 ratio. The IBA also lists the family: a Puccini uses mandarin juice, a Rossini strawberry purée, a Tintoretto pomegranate juice.
Cipriani’s own account is that Giuseppe Cipriani created it at Harry’s Bar in Venice in 1948 and named it for the 15th-century Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini. Other accounts put it anywhere from 1934 to 1948. Fresh white peaches are seasonal; peach nectar is the year-round substitute. At 0.7 standard drinks it sits between the Mimosa and a full glass of wine.
Greyhound and Salty Dog
No IBA recipe. A Greyhound is a Screwdriver with grapefruit juice in place of orange: 1.5 oz gin or vodka to 4 oz grapefruit juice over ice. Rim the glass with salt and it is a Salty Dog. Gin was the original spirit. Harry Craddock’s 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book has a “grapefruit cocktail” of gin and grapefruit, and a 1945 issue of Harper’s describes “cocktails … made of gin, sugar, and canned grapefruit juice, a greyhound” served at the Post House restaurants in Greyhound bus terminals, which is where the name comes from. Vodka took over after the war, as it did in the Screwdriver. The Salty Dog’s origin is undocumented.
How the numbers were worked out
NIAAA defines a standard drink as 0.6 fl oz (17.7 mL) of pure alcohol: 1.5 oz of an 80 proof spirit, 5 oz of 12 percent wine, 12 oz of 5 percent beer. For each drink we multiplied the alcoholic ingredient’s volume by its ABV and divided by 17.7. Sparkling wine is assumed at 12 percent; Prosecco DOC’s legal minimum is lower, so a Mimosa or Bellini made with an 11 percent bottle is a little lighter still. Calories come from USDA FoodData Central: orange juice (FDC 169098, 45 per 100 g), tomato juice (170458), pink grapefruit juice (167774), white table wine (174837, used for sparkling since USDA has no separate entry), 80 proof spirits (174815, 97 per 1.5 oz), brewed coffee (171890) and heavy cream (170859, 340 per 100 g). Grenadine, peach purée, honey and watermelon are not in the totals; add them from the label.
| Drink | Alcohol in the serve | Pure alcohol | Standard drinks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mimosa (IBA, 75 mL sparkling wine) | 75 mL at 12% | 9.0 mL | 0.5 |
| Bellini (IBA, 100 mL Prosecco) | 100 mL at 12% | 12.0 mL | 0.7 |
| Bloody Mary (IBA, 45 mL vodka) | 45 mL at 40% | 18.0 mL | 1.0 |
| Tequila Sunrise (IBA, 45 mL tequila) | 45 mL at 40% | 18.0 mL | 1.0 |
| Screwdriver or Greyhound (1.5 oz spirit) | 44 mL at 40% | 17.7 mL | 1.0 |
| Irish Coffee (IBA, 50 mL whiskey) | 50 mL at 40% | 20.0 mL | 1.1 |
| White Sangria (5 oz wine plus about 0.4 oz brandy) | 148 mL at 12% plus 12 mL at 40% | 22.5 mL | 1.3 |
| Watermelon Martini (2 oz vodka) | 59 mL at 40% | 23.7 mL | 1.4 |
Serving them with food
All nine are meant to be poured alongside a meal, and the juice and sparkling-wine drinks are lighter than anything on an evening menu for that reason. Eggs, pancakes, biscuits, bacon, smoked fish and pastries all sit well next to them. Keep the pours at the measures above, use a jigger rather than a free pour, and let the mixers do the work.
Sources
- IBA official cocktails: Mimosa, Bloody Mary, Tequila Sunrise, Irish Coffee, Bellini, checked September 14, 2026; the Screwdriver page no longer exists on iba-world.com (removed in the 2020 list revision, per the list history)
- NIAAA, What is a standard drink, checked September 14, 2026
- USDA FoodData Central: orange juice, raw (169098), tomato juice (170458), pink grapefruit juice (167774), white table wine (174837), distilled spirits 80 proof (174815), brewed coffee (171890), heavy cream (170859), checked September 14, 2026
- Wikipedia, Mimosa (cocktail) (Meier’s 1936 book) and Spirits Hunters, The Ritz enigma: Frank Meier, checked September 14, 2026
- Difford’s Guide, Bloody Mary history, AP via Chicago Sun-Times, Bloody Mary 100th birthday (December 15, 2021) and Wikipedia, Bloody Mary (Beebe 1939, Petiot 1964), checked September 14, 2026
- Wikipedia, Screwdriver (Newsweek February 21, 1944; Time October 24, 1949), checked September 14, 2026
- Wikipedia, Tequila sunrise (Biltmore, Trident, Cuervo, Eagles), checked September 14, 2026
- Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Museum, Chef Joe Sheridan and The Buena Vista, Irish Coffee story, checked September 14, 2026
- Cipriani, Bellini, checked September 14, 2026
- Wikipedia, Greyhound (Savoy Cocktail Book 1930; Harper’s 1945) and Salty dog, checked September 14, 2026
- Difford’s Guide, 1990s cocktails (fruit martinis), checked September 14, 2026
- Regulation (EU) No 251/2014, Annex II (sangria definition), checked September 14, 2026
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