The Tequila Cocktail Favored By Mick Jagger
Rock stars may have their favorite drinks and dishes, whether it's '60s icon Janice Joplin and her love for Southern Comfort whiskey or Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who is a bangers and beans fan. Still, it takes another level of stardom to make a little-known cocktail hugely popular.
“By 1973, the drink's reputation was solidified when the Eagles had a hit single with”
It was June 1972, and Jagger was at the Trident restaurant in Sausalito, California, while he and the rest of the Rolling Stones were on their North American tour for the album "Exile on Main Street." They were at the restaurant for a small private party when Jagger ordered a margarita. The bartender, Bob Lozoff, convinced the singer to try a tequila sunrise instead. Jagger and the rest of the band couldn't get enough of them. "After that, they took them all across the country," Lozoff told National Geographic Assignment in 2012.
Mick Jagger spread the drink far and wide
Bob Lozoff, the Trident restaurant's resident bartender back in the 1970s, lays claim to having invented the tequila sunrise, which he based on the Singapore sling, a tiki drink made with gin. The Arizona Biltmore, a resort in Phoenix, also claims to have invented the tequila sunrise, way back in the 1930s. Its version featured tequila, soda, lime juice, and crème de cassis. Whoever may have actually invented the cocktail, it was Lozoff's version that Mick Jagger fell in love with and spread far and wide.
The 1972 Rolling Stones tour was huge and also well-publicized for its debauched nature. According to band guitarist Keith Richards in his memoir, "Life," the tour went by various names, including "the Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise tour." By 1973, the drink's reputation was solidified when the Eagles had a hit single with "Tequila Sunrise," although their song is actually about drinking tequila straight and watching a sunrise. The drink also spawned the lesser-known tequila sunset, which sometimes includes grapefruit juice in place of or in addition to orange juice and blackberry liqueur instead of grenadine. All that to say, it's not often someone can take an obscure cocktail and make it hugely popular, unless, of course, that person is Mick Jagger.