It's bright, it's fruity, and it's the third most famous cultural export from "Cocktail" behind Tom Cruise and "Kokomo" – it's the ! Although mixology has grown ever more sophisticated since the cocktail's halcyon days of the '80s, there should still be a place in our hearts for drinks like these, no matter how dated or tacky they may seem. When you're on vacation in Florida and you're sitting at a bar whose decor hasn't been updated since the first Bush administration, you're not looking for some fussy concoction made from craft whisky, gourmet coffee, and a single tear from a virgin unicorn. You're looking for something that .
The name helps, of course. If it were called a Schnapps Sunrise or a Daytona Toodle-oo or whatever, it wouldn't have been nearly as popular — Sex on the Beach lends the drink a certain cheeky abandon, a very '80s sort of naughtiness that's silly and enticing at the same time. It's certainly much more pleasant than actual sex on the beach, which is, by most accounts, kind of a nightmare.
But where did the drink come from, and why does it have such a striking name? The popular origin story may not be true There's nothing people love more than a food or drink with a neat origin story, and Sex on the Beach seems like it has a good one — if somewhat more mercenary than the (alleged) origins of or . The story goes that a Floridian bartender by the name of Ted Pizio took up a $1000 challenge in 1987 to sell as much peach schnapps as he could, so he cre.