Tequila Sunrise

The Tequila Sunrise cocktail is as colorful itself as its history. The simple recipe, Tequila, orange juice, and grenadine, make a cocktail so delicious and so bright it was adopted by rock stars and found its way to the title of a famous class rock song!

In the 1930s, Gene Sulit of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel combined Tequila, soda water, lime juice, and liqueur to create the first ‘Tequila Sunrise’. Over the years, the drink found its way farther west, landing in the Bay Area. In Sausalito, a city north of San Francisco, the bartenders at The Trident, Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice, remade the Tequila Sunrise, this time with just Tequila, orange juice, and grenadine. It just so happened The Trident was the site of a private party organized by famous San Franciscan Bill Graham, where one of rock’s greatest bands, The Rolling Stones, was kicking off their 1972 tour of America. Mick Jagger, the lead singer of The Rolling Stones, had one, ordered some for his fellow bandmates, who ordered more for their entourage. Soon the Tequila Sunrise became the Stones go-to drink while on tour, spreading the cocktail nationwide as they ordered the Tequila cocktail in every town they came across.

But the Tequila Sunrise’s love affair with classic rock didn’t end with The Rolling Stones! A year later, in 1973, the Eagles, another great rock band out of California, named one of their songs ‘Tequila Sunrise’ on their Desperado album – cementing the Tequila cocktail’s legacy in not just the annals of rock history, but the spirits and cocktail history of America.