The classic cocktail invented for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
In 1972, The Rolling Stones were the undisputed biggest band in the world, having just released their first double album Exile on Main St, and on the cusp of a career-defining tour of the United States. Tour organiser Bill Graham decided to throw them a welcome party when they arrived stateside, bringing Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the band to the famous Trident restaurant on the Frisco Bay waterfront.
“The Stones were really hard to handle,” bartender Bobby Lozoff recently recalled to 7×7 magazine. He wasn’t wrong. Later in the tour, for example, Richards challenged author Truman Capote to a fight. According to Lozoff, the Stones were taken to the Trident “for a secure, intimate party”. In other words, to keep them out of trouble.
Seeing a chance to impress their famous guests, Lozoff and his fellow young cocktail maker at the restaurant Billy Rice seized their moment. They took an old cocktail recipe invented four decades earlier in an Arizona hotel and simplified it to bring out the rich and sweet flavour of fresh California oranges. Perfect for a midsummer rock and roll roadshow.
“Keith Richards walked up to the bar and asked for a margarita,” Lozoff continued, “And I said, ‘Hey, have you ever tried this drink?’ And he went ‘Alcohol? I’ll try it.’” Lozoff distilled his new concoction into a large sherry glass, embellishing it with a slice of orange and a glacé cherry. Richards was smitten. He soon called Jagger over, who loved the drink so much that he insisted it became a tour staple from that point on.
What was the cocktail, then?
Lozoff had served Jagger and Richards their first tequila sunrise of many. “You could sort of see the light go on in his head. Bingo,” he said, in reference to the Stones’ frontman. “You don’t need a bartender to travel with you; just buy a bottle of Cuervo, a bottle of orange juice, and grenadine. So they picked it up and took it across the country.”
The band’s notorious travels around the United States in the summer of 1972 became known as the “Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise” tour, after the drink Lozoff and Rice had invented. And the Stones’ penchant for white powder, of course. Jagger and Richards asked for the drink everywhere they went, spreading it to all corners of North America.
And so, for every tequila sunrise we drink, we should raise a glass for Mick and Keith. And those two daring young bartenders at the Trident, of course. Without whom this refreshing summer tipple wouldn’t exist.
