I Found Orange Crush’s Forgotten Cocktail Recipes

In 1965, Orange Crush decided it wasn't just for kids anymore. They put out this little booklet called Fiesta Orange Crush, with, of course, Orange Crush Fiesta recipes. And while there are plenty of ice cream floats and sherbet drinks in here, things get a lot more interesting when they start adding booze. There's Orange Crush with rum, Orange Crush with vodka and grenadine. There's gin, punschero, white wine, and even Campari. And the best part is, these aren't modern cocktails pretending to be vintage. These are actual recipes Orange Crush was telling people to serve at parties in 1965. So today we're going to make five of these and find out if Orange Crush. Belongs behind a bar. Now, Orange Crush goes all the way back to the 1910s. It was developed by beverage chemist Neil C. Ward and sold as Ward's Orange Crush. Early versions even had orange pulp added to the bottle. And by the 1920s, it was being sold in those distinctive ribbed, crinkly bottles. Now, over the next several decades, Crush became one of America's major orange sodas, which brings us back to this booklet in 1965. Crush changed hands several times after that, and today it's owned by Keurig Dr Pepper. Although Pepsi bottlers distribute it in much of the United States, and it's still a major orange soda. Keurig Dr Pepper has ranked Crush as the number three orange soda brand in the United States, behind SunCris and Fanta. So, more than a century later, Orange Crush is still around. The cocktails, however, have mostly disappeared. That is until today. So let's make some, and let's start with the one I'm by far the most interested in trying. It's very simple. Into a glass with ice, I'm going to add one and a half ounces of Campari. And four ounces of orange crush. I'll garnish this with an orange slice. It's just Campari and soda, Campari and orange soda. Cheers. There's definitely more to that than just soda and Campari. the The orange flavor is definitely heightened as opposed to Campari on its own, which has its own orange flavor. And then it is sweeter. I don't think I find it to be too sweet, though. It it tastes like a little. Less sweet than a typical soda, but still, you know. Plenty sweet, and if you don't like things that are. You know, sweet. Then this probably needs to be dialed back. But you could use orange crush here, and then add some soda water to lengthen that out as well. Next up is the orange blossom punch a la crush, and I'm keeping most of the recipes today closely the original, but I have scaled some down and swapped some ingredients for what's available to me today. So let's go ahead and make this one. I'm going to start with a quarter ounce of lemon juice. Half an ounce of a rich two-to-one simple syrup. Half an ounce of piquantro. And three ounces of dry white wine. I'll now add some ice and about one and a half ounces of orange crush and two and a half ounces of ginger ale. And I'll garnish this with a slice of orange. I think the opportunity of that booklet and a lot of those older booklets is finding punch recipes because they're easy to adjust. But using a soda can add some sweetness, obviously, and then some of that effervescence. So let's try this orange blossom. Punch a la crush. Cheers. That is quite good. It's a little bit sweet. It's, it's not. I won't say it's overly sweet. The wine and the ginger ale are the the two things that kind of stick out the most, and then you're getting some of the orange flavor in the background. Bumping up the lemon juice here would be great. I don't know if we need that much simple syrup at all, but those flavors all work. The wine, the cointreau, the orange crush, the lemon juice. That's It's very good. This would be a very good holiday punch. All right. If you're enjoying this video so far, I have other videos similar to this one. I've done Seven Up in the past. I've done different root beers. I've done Coca Cola, and I have a couple more books, old books from the 1960s and 70s that I'll get to probably in the coming months. But if you if you like these so far, I'll give the video like below. Subscribe to the channel if you have not already, and let's move on to our next drink. This one's very simple. This is the Crush Rosie O'Grady, and we're going to build this one in the glass with some ice. Starting with half an ounce of grenadine, and I ran out of my fresh grenadine, so it's about half fresh grenadine, half Libero grenadine. One and a half ounces of gin, or you could use vodka here. And then four ounces of orange crush. Finally, I'll add a maraschino cherry. I need to check the recipe roll. Okay, the official recipe in here is use vodka, and the reason I did it is because there's another recipe that calls for maybe a couple other that call for vodka or gin, and I just go to gin. So, in this instance, it's going to be different. It's going to be a flavored vodka, a juniper berry flavored vodka. So let's see if that matters at all. Here's. This is close to being something that's really good, and I think the gin is the main thing. The gin with with the grenadine kind of gives that. You know, and the and the effervescence gives kind of that dirty Shirley sort of vibe. Obviously, not vodka here. It kind of reminds me of a Tom Collins. If this had a little bit of lemon juice or lime juice. Maybe a little bit less sweetness from the orange crush. I think that would be amazing. This is good. It's sweet. If you're looking for a sweeter soda-based drink, this is this is actually delicious, but it is a little bit sweet and could use like a touch of acidity. We're getting a little tiny bit of acidity there from the orange crush, but we can get more by using some some lemon or lime juice. That would be that would be fantastic. Just do it. Definitely not the most interesting thing that that I've had so far. I'm sure it's not going to be the most interesting thing compared to the the next two, or at least the last one. But there's something to this. There's something to that orange crush, and that the orange crush is going to work great in a cocktail. If it's supposed to have those flavors, it's not gonna, you know, replace your colas or your ginger beers or your just plain soda waters. It's gonna add obviously that orange soda flavor, but there is something to that. If you want that flavor in there, if you want. To to complement other botanical notes from gin or. We'll we'll test this next one that's coming up because it has rum in it, but there are things I really love about a mai tai, and it's a lot of those orange notes you get from the barrel notes of an aged rum that I do think. Would end up pairing nicely with an orange crush. Next cocktail is called the Crushin Rum, and this one's very basic. In a glass with some ice, I'm going to add one and a half ounces of rum. And four ounces of orange crush. Garnish this with a mint sprig. I did use a rum, Ron Del Barlito, that that macerates a rum in orange peel, so you get some of those intensified orange peel flavors. I don't think we need to be, you know, that particular about the rum, choose here, but I thought that'd be a fun one to use, to see how well it can complement. Orange Crush, cheers. Kind of want to go back in time and shake the person that made that booklet and just tell them. Put a little bit of lime juice or lemon juice into all of these drinks that don't have it. That should is that's the one thing missing from those. There might be, but right now one thing. It's not great. It's definitely not bad. It's better than it was. There's just not, I think, enough going on. There needs to be something else, like another flavor in there. To. To balance it out, probably something like an orange liqueur. The orange crush is there. It's like a nice little bit of effervescence there. These aren't none of these are like sparkling drinks, but there's a little bit there. And then, I think that rum actually does work rather well. With the with orange crush, but maybe something a little stronger that can hold up more, with that much orange crush, but adding lime juice here helps. It bumps it up from, you know, three or four out of ten to like a six. Final drink today is a fun one. We're gonna build a cocktail and add some orange sherbet to it. This is the Canasta Punch. And while it's supposed to have a quarter ounce of a limeade concentrate, I'm just using a quarter ounce of lime juice. Then three quarter ounces of gin. One and a half ounces of orange crush. And two ounces of ginger ale. Now this is supposed to be a big punch with with orange sherbet in it, but instead, I'm just going to add about one and a half scoops of orange sherbet. That's it. So there you go, the canasta punch. Cheers. So normally, if I'm doing a a mid-century cocktail like this, I'm gonna go for the Canada Dry ginger ale. That's what I expect they were using back then. I didn't have any colt, so I used Fever Tree. And these cocktails have been a little strange. The ones that call for it, they're they're calling for more, of the ginger ale than than of the orange crush. I think that's making them much better. The orange crush is a little bit more lost with the fever tree, but those those flavors, like the the the more intense ginger notes, there pair with that you know pretty sweet orange crush, and it's it's great. I can't really taste the the spirit in here at all, but without even trying the sherbet, it's it's great. That is so good, and it really is, the fever tree. And the orange, so that the ginger and the orange, if you're looking for a holiday punch this year. I would rework this. Put a little bit more of the gin. The gin works great, and. With the orange sherbet with the the fever tree. It's wonderful, and you can imagine one of those big punch bowls with a whole bunch of sherbet, and it's all kind of like foamy on the top. It tastes great. It's gonna look cool and retro. It's gonna taste great as well. So there you go, folks. Orange Crush cocktails for the win. These turned out pretty damn good, and I like to try my best to share. The original thing that I found. Here on YouTube, but don't feel like you have to. Just change it up, add more acidity where needed, adjust the sweetness. But orange crush makes a great mixer, and I think it does. Belong behind the bar. Especially with like punches, it's such a great complement to the other flavors in there. So don't forget about it this holiday season, or if you have a party or anything, because it uh. It's great. That's it for this one. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like below. If you want to support this channel more, go check out my Patreon page. Otherwise, we'll see on the next one.