Liquid Legacy: Five Famous People With Drinks Named After Them

It would be difficult to claim that iced tea and lemonade had never met in the same glass before golfer Arnold Palmer combined them, but he definitely receives the credit. According to Palmer himself, he tried mixing one up after his wife made a big batch of iced tea, and liked it so much that he started bringing a thermos of it on the golf course with him and ordering it at bars. 

After ordering the mix in Palm Springs, a curious woman then asked for “the Arnold Palmer” and cemented his name to the beverage forever. You’ll even see his face on the popular canned version of the drink made by Arizona. Although apparently the most common recipe is wrong: Palmer said that it should be one-third lemonade to two-thirds iced tea.

You can’t very well name an alcoholic cocktail after someone who’s famous for being well under drinking age. Of course, there’s the question of why a child needs an eponymous drink whatsoever, but at this point, we’re well beyond that. 

As the story goes, it was simply something non-alcoholic for the child star to sip while out and about in Hollywood that looked a little more adult than a juice box. Not that a combination of grenadine and soda is any less sweet. One story recounts that Temple was watching her parents sip off-limits Old Fashioneds, and so, the waitstaff made her a faux cocktail that included the Old Fashioned's signature cherry. 

Though, funnily enough, a cherry in an Old Fashioned is now, well, old fashioned. Most just come with an orange peel these days.

Looking for something nearly as sweet as a Shirley Temple, but with booze added, and don’t feel like ordering a “Dirty Shirley”? Which, first off: Who can blame you? I’d feel more adult asking for a straight-up popsicle. 

Regardless, the drink you might be looking for is the “Mary Pickford.” Named after “America's Sweetheart,” actress Mary Pickford, the drink was suitably saccharine. Made up of two-thirds pineapple juice, one-third rum and a bit of grenadine, without its signature martini glass it would probably fit right in at a poolside tiki bar. 

If you want to make one yourself, weirdly, Rachel Maddow has your back.

The namesake of the Bellini is one that people are much less likely to pick up on. That’s because the Bellini isn’t named for a star of stage or screen, or even a figure with a recognizable face. It’s, in fact, named for a painter by the name of Giovanni Bellini. 

The Bellini, a combination of peach, lemon and sparkling wine, was invented at a Venetian bar famous in its own right, long before it graced most upscale brunch menus. The owner of the storied Harry's Bar, Giuseppe Cipriani, mixed it up one day and noticed that the hue seemed pulled straight from a painting he’d seen by Bellini, so he graced it with the artist’s name.

Unique for being the only drink on this list named for a fictional character, the Vesper is a famous drink nonetheless. It’s also not nearly as much of a production as the others, given that it’s basically a variation on a martini. 

It was first invented by a fictional character, too: James Bond. Bond orders the drink, with specific instruction, in his first book appearance, Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale. Later in the same book, Bond, infatuated by the mysterious Vesper Lynd, names it after her at her request. The name stuck, not only within the Bond universe but in the real world as well.