Tequila Sunrise (cocktail)

The Tequila Sunrise cocktail was invented by Robert Emmett “Lanny” Leighninger (1895-1982) at the Agua Caliente race track in the 1930s. Leighninger worked for the track and also wrote a racing column for the New York (NY) Morning Telegraph. The Caliente Hotel had an oversupply of tequila, and a drink was needed so that Americans would consume it. Lanny’s “Sunrise Tequila” recipe was published in the track’s drinks pamphlet, “Bottoms Up” (1933), and consisted of “a mixture of tequila, creme de Cassis, bitters and one other secret ingredient,” the San Francisco (CA) Chronicle reported in 1944. “Sunrise Tequila” became “Tequila Sunrise” by at least 1935.

It’s sometimes said that the Tequila Sunrise was invented by Gene Sulit at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in the late 1930s or early 1940s, but this is not correct. The modern Tequila Sunrise, with orange juice, was iinveted by bartenders Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice at The Trident bar in Sausalito, California, in 1972.
 
 
Wikipedia: Tequila sunrise
The tequila sunrise is a cocktail made of tequila, orange juice, and grenadine syrup. The drink is served unmixed in a tall glass. The modern drink originates from Sausalito, California, in the early 1970s after an earlier iteration created in the 1930s in Phoenix, Arizona. The cocktail is named for its appearance when served—with gradations of color resembling an inverted sunrise.

History
The original tequila sunrise contained tequila, crème de cassis, lime juice, and soda water. It was created at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel by Gene Sulit in the 1930s or 1940s.
 
The more popular modern version of the cocktail contains tequila, orange juice, and grenadine, and was created by Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice in the early 1970s while they were working as young bartenders at the Trident in Sausalito, California north of San Francisco.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
tequila sunrise, a name given to cocktails containing tequila and grenadine.
1965 O. A. MENDELSOHN Dict. Drink & Drinking 336 Tequila Sunrise, mixed drink of tequila, lemon juice, grenadine and cinnamon liqueur.
 
Newspapers.com
22 November 1933, Vancouver (BC) Sun, “Sport Rays” by Andy Lytle, pg. 12, col. 1:
Stout Gods, These
Caliente’s high-powered press agency corps flings a book on the art of imbibing, called “Bottoms Up.”

Among the suggestions thrown out at all liberated peopleis is “Sunrise Tequila” or “Dawn Drink of the Waking Gods.”

This “fascinating Tequila fantasy” is recommended to take the place usually occupied by the matutinal Collins, and the writer brightly suggest that two of them is prescribed by the mixologist experts as “just dandy.”
 
I have been told that Tequila is a mixture of rusted barb wire pickled in raw spirits and volcanically treated for heat content.
 
My informant says one snort of it will induce a man to match himself with his fiercest in-law and two will leave him where he drops.
 
Newspapers.com
2 December 1933, Kansas City (MO) Journal-Post, “Edw. W. Cochrane’s Column,” pg, 6, col. 1:
The Agua Caliente Company has sent out an unusual book called “Bottoms Up”...It is on the art of drinking, containing the recipes for making all sorts of mixed drinks, which will be very much in vogue again very soon…Among the suggestions for folks who are again to be free is “Sunrise Tequila,” also called “Dawn Drink of the Waking Gods”...This drink is recommended by the writer of the book as a “fascinating fantasy” and says two will make a gent feel great…Yes, sir, if you know Tequila, two of ;em, well made and heavy enough, will not only make you feel great, but also much as you would feel if some one tapped you firmly on the head with a man’s sized hammer.
 
Newspapers.com
25 March 1935, Los Angeles (CA) TImes, pg. 6, col. 2 ad:
AGUA CALIENTE
OLD MEXICO
Morn..The babble of foreign voices…Tequila sunrise
 
Newspapers.com
29 March 1935, Los Angeles (CA) Evening Post-Record, “New Drinks Herald Spring at Biltmore,” pg. 19, col. 1
Arrival of spring was evidence today by new the drink menus which went into play at the various “bars” of the Biltmore>

Such warm weather favorites as the mint julep, tequila sunrise, picon punch, Irish rose and pineapple bronx were announced by John Kelly, head liquor dispenser.
 
Newspapers.com
27 December 1935, The State Journal (Lansing, MI), “The World And All” by Charles B. Driscoll, pg. 6, col. 5:
The favorite drink of Americas in Mexico is the tequila sunrise, made of tequila, Dubonnet, lime juice and a dash of grenadine.
 
Newspapers.com
14 March 1936, San Francisco (CA) Chronicle, pg. 24, cols. 5-6:
Tanforan Turf Review
Folks You Seldom See, But Ought to Know
TAKE F’RINSTANCE
‘Lanny’
Leighninger
“Lanny” to his friends, and a walking guide to the turf. has more turk knowledge stored in his cranium than any other living writer.Right now is engaged in promoting enterprise of A. T. Jergins seeking second track in Los Angeles. Flew in France during the war, now confines his piloting to directing taxi drivers. One of the powers behind the throne in California racing, but few know him outside of the turf fraternity. Invented a new drink for the Agua Caliente Company called the tequila sunrise. Three under the belt and you’re betting millions.
 
Newspapers.com
20 January 1939, Daily News (Los Angeles, CA), “Town Talk” by Matt Weinstock, pg. 16, col. 1:
A new sports editor comes to town—Robert Emmett Leighninger. Last time we stat down with Lanny was at Baron Long’s Agua Caliente in its heyday. Single handed, Lanny made the world conscious of the tequila sunrise, a hangover proof drink with grenadine and whatnot and the only palatable tequila concoction on record.
 
29 September 1940, Los Angeles (CA) Times, pg. I10:
He ordered a Tequila Sunrise and she said she’d have the same because she’d never tried one.
   
4 May 1941, Helena (MT) Independent, pg. 2, col. 1 ad:
INDIVIDUAL CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL…
ZOMBIE…
BOO SNOOKER…
RUM BOOGIE…
CUBAN COOLER…
SEA BREEZE COLLINS…
SCARLETT O’HARA…
TEQUILA SUNRISE:
(Tequila and 4 Other Ingredients)
 
Newspapers.com
3 July 1944, San Francisco (CA) Chronicle, “San Francisco” by Robert O’Brien, pg. 11, cols. 1-2:
HISTORY OF A DRINK: R. E. Leighninger, former associate steward at Bay Meadows, and currently the presiding steward at Longacres, was in a San Francisco bar recently, and the sign he saw brought back a memory. The sign read, “The Home of the Tequila Sunrise.”

Actually, Leighninger knew, this bar was not the home of the tequila sunrise and the bartender was not the inventor. The home of the tequila sunrise was the Caliente Hotel at Agua Caliente, and he, Leighninger, was the man who discovered it.
 
it goes back 20 years to the time he was working for Baron Long and handling public relations for Caliente. At that time, the hotel was having to buy cases of tequila in order to get one case of Scotch or bourbon. The American trade did not like tequila, and it was piling up in the warehouse. Finally, Leighninger decided the thing to do was to invent a new drink, made with tequila, that would sell to Americans.
 
Using Jerry Strayer, the manager of the hotel, as a willing buy wary guinea pig, he began concocting tequila drinks. The quest lasted for two weeks, with time out every other day or two so Strayer could get back on his feet. When at last he hit upon a mixture of tequila, creme de Cassis, bitters and one other secret ingredient, Strayer said, “Boys, this is it,” and collpased. And that was the beginning of the Tequila Sunrise, and the end of Caliente’s tequila worries.
 
18 May 1956, Los Angeles (CA) Times, pg. B6 ad:
It’s delicious with
Jose Cuervo Tequila
TRY A TEQUILA SUNRISE
Fill glass with crushed ice
One jigger Cuervo Tequila
One teaspoonful grenadine
1/3 teaspoonful creme de cassis
Juice 1/2 lime & sparkling water

Newspapers.com
17 May 2015, Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ), “10 Historic Moments in Arizona Dining: From saloons to the chimi,” pg. 4D, col. 2:
The first tequila sunrise
Before it was a Mel Gibson movie or an Eagles sommg, tequila sunrise was a refreshing cocktail first served at the Arizona Biltmore, The story goes that sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s, a hotel regular asked bartender Gene Sulit to make him a drink he could enjoy lounging by the pool.
 
Los Angeles (CA) Times
The Sausalito bartender who created the Tequila Sunrise, and served it to the Rolling Stones, has died
By Grace Toohey
April 30, 2025 5:03 PM PT
The creator of the modern-day Tequila Sunrise, concocted and popularized in a Sausalito bar in the 1970s, has died.
 
Robert “Bobby” Lozoff, a longtime bartender at The Trident, a well-known bar, music venue and restaurant frequented by many celebrities, died earlier this month in Hawaii of unknown causes. He was 77.

Lozoff and a co-bartender, Billy Rice, are credited with creating the “most famous and most popular version of the Tequila Sunrise,” according to a historic plaque denoting the milestone, which the Marin History Museum erected in 2023.
 
As the story goes, Lozoff served the drink to a member of the Rolling Stones in 1972, when the band was at The Trident for a party.