The drink
The International Bartenders Association places Sex on the Beach among its Contemporary Classics. Its recipe calls for 40 ml vodka, 20 ml peach schnapps, 40 ml fresh orange juice and 40 ml cranberry juice. Sometimes the ingredients are mixed in smaller amounts and served as a shooter. A woo woo is a sex on the beach without orange juice. The alcohol-free variation is sometimes referred to as "safe sex on the beach", "cuddles on the beach", or "virgin(s) on the beach".
A Fuzzy Navel is a mixed drink made from peach schnapps and orange juice. The Cape Codder is a cocktail consisting of vodka and cranberry juice. Sex on the Beach adds orange juice and peach schnapps to the Cape Codder.
History
According to one version of the drink's history, a spirits company wanted in 1987 to boost sales of its new product, peach schnapps. The company launched a contest in Fort Lauderdale during spring break, awarding $1,000 to the bar that sold the most peach schnapps. Ted Pizio of Confetti bar made a new cocktail of peach schnapps, vodka, orange juice and grenadine. Inspired by the crowds of spring break revelers, Pizio called it the Sex on the Beach.
Pizio's original recipe contained grenadine, but the cocktail is now much more commonly made with cranberry juice. Cranberry juice shares a similar tart-sweet flavor and red color with grenadine. The first recorded recipe was in the 1982 edition of the American Bartenders School Guide to Drinks. Some historians theorize that the cocktail was likely invented as a combination of a Fuzzy Navel with a Cape Codder.
In 1984, National Distillers launched the first peach-flavored schnapps sold in the United States. Schnapps exploded in popularity in America in the 1980s, particularly the peach and peppermint flavors.
Peach schnapps and the Cape Codder
American schnapps is typically bottled at 15 to 20 percent alcohol by volume, though some is much stronger. Between 1984 and 1985, the number of cases of schnapps shipped to retail stores rose 74 percent, from 3.05 million to 5.3 million. The peach schnapps released in 1984 became the ninth best-selling alcohol in America and moved over 12 million bottles in its first year on shelves.
The Cape Codder was conceived in 1945 by a cranberry growers' cooperative under the name Red Devil, and the name Cape Codder dates from the early 1960s. The name refers to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a peninsula famous for growing cranberries.
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