Tequila Sunrise
Tequila, fresh orange juice, and a slow-sinking float of real grenadine: the Sausalito original whose gradient named the drink and whose 1972 Rolling Stones party made it famous.
Tequila Sunrise
Origin: highHigh confidence: the main claims on this page are backed by primary sources (regulatory documents, peer-reviewed research, or direct producer attestation) and have been verified against the editorial correction log.Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice · The Trident, Sausalito, California · 1971
Ingredients
- 45 ml100% agave blanco tequila
- 120 mlfresh orange juice
- 10 mlreal grenadine(pomegranate-based, not HFCS-with-red-dye)
Method
Build tequila and orange juice in a chilled highball over ice. Slowly pour grenadine down the inside of the glass so it sinks and creates the sunrise gradient. Do not stir.
Editor's note: Do not stir. The point is the gradient. The 7 June 1972 Rolling Stones party at the Trident is the cocktail’s cultural breakout moment.
Two different drinks have worn the name Tequila Sunrise, and the one everybody knows is the younger of the pair. The original was created by Gene Sulit at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix in the 1930s: tequila, crème de cassis (a blackcurrant liqueur), lime juice, and soda water, served poolside, and the hotel still pours it as the "Biltmore Original Tequila Sunrise." The drink on this page is a fundamentally different construction. Around 1970 to 1972, bartenders Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice at The Trident in Sausalito, California built tequila and fresh orange juice over ice and let a small pour of grenadine sink slowly through the glass, producing the red-to-orange-to-yellow gradient that gives the cocktail its name.
The Trident version's breakout has a date: 7 June 1972, when the Rolling Stones opened their Exile on Main St. North American tour with a party at the Trident hosted by the promoter Bill Graham. Mick Jagger ordered a Margarita; Lozoff suggested he try a Tequila Sunrise instead. The band drank them for the rest of the tour, and Jose Cuervo built marketing around the association, cementing the Trident build as the canonical Tequila Sunrise in American memory. The Eagles finished the job: Don Henley and Glenn Frey's song "Tequila Sunrise," on the 1973 album Desperado, took its title in part, Henley has said, from Frey's habit of drinking the cocktail with him on tour, and it fixed the Trident version in popular memory for good.
Two details separate a real Tequila Sunrise from the sticky version of its reputation. The grenadine must be real grenadine, a pomegranate-based syrup, not the corn-syrup-and-red-dye product that fills most bar wells. And the grenadine is floated, poured gently down the inside of the glass so it sinks on its own; the drink is never stirred. The slow sink through the orange juice is the entire visual point, and a Sunrise that has been shaken or stirred is, mechanically and aesthetically, not the drink.
For the spirit at the bottom of the glass, start with the tequila entry; for the full history of both Sunrises and the canon around them, see the cocktails chapter.