It’s Not About the Oranges
It has recently come to my attention that the Orange Crush cocktail that’s so wildly popular in certain Delaware beach bars is said to have originated just south of the state line in West Ocean City, Maryland. The story goes that the owner of the Harborside Bar and Grill and a couple of his bartenders were playing around one Sunday afternoon in 1995 with a bottle of orange-flavored vodka and voilà the Orange Crush was born.
Hmm… I’m not a birther by any means, but I am keenly aware that cocktail history is fraught with competing claims and lore about which bartender invented what cocktail. And, for the most part, there’s no valid way of really knowing what’s true or not. Although nobody seems yet to be challenging the Harborside claim, I still can’t shake my skepticism. An Orange Crush is merely a screwdriver cocktail with a shot of triple sec and some lemon-lime flavored soda. I can’t believe nobody tried that before 1995.
Naturally, I had to visit the Harborside Bar and Grill to check this out. It’s a wooden establishment whose backside opens onto the water near a working marina and docks where you can charter fishing boats. Gritty is the word that comes to mind. As you would expect, the sign out front boldly announces the home of the Orange Crush, as do newspaper articles framed on the walls and t-shirts for sale. Inside people pound crabs and beers and watch their beloved Orioles play baseball. Fans whirl and it smells of Old Bay and French fries. White lights strung across the ceiling add a festive touch.
I bellied up to the bar right in front of the industrial silver citrus juicer and ordered an Orange Crush. It was served in a real glass and it tasted, well, like an Orange Crush should, even if it was a little sweet for my taste. I prefer club soda to Sierra Mist or Sprite in an Orange Crush.
As I sipped, I began to wonder what it was that makes these cocktails so popular. They aren’t sophisticated. There’s nothing artisanal or craft about them. Expensive vodka or fancy heirloom oranges aren’t required. It’s downright plebian. As a misty rain blew in on me out on the Harborside dock, I suddenly realized the intangible ingredient was ambience. Now it all made sense.
Crushes, you see, are a summer cocktail best enjoyed in a funky beach bar with a party vibe and an outdoor space so you can experience the weather. The oranges—or grapefruits as I prefer—should be juiced using an old fashioned manual citrus crushing machine, and preferably yanked by a good-looking bartender with muscular arms. The vodka should be plentiful. These aren’t cocktails to sip at a soft jazz brunch at the Four Seasons.
So where can you get an authentic Orange Crush experience in our area? Here are my favorite three places.
1. The Purple Parrot Biergarten on Wilmington Avenue in Rehoboth is a cool hangout amongst the bamboo and wisteria canopy on a Saturday afternoon. The music is good. Dogs are permitted. And when it gets hot the bartenders get shirtless and squeeze fruit.
2. The Starboard on Route One in Dewey has been serving crush cocktails for almost as long as Harborside Bar and Grill. This quintessential beach bar has plenty of outdoor deck space upon which to drink. It might be the only place where the grapefruit crush—made with Ruby Red Vodka, triple sec, and Sprite—outsells the orange version. It’s great for people watching and for drinking in the morning without judgement.
3. Hammerheads Dockside at the Indian River Marina is an ideal place to sit outside in the sun and enjoy a crush or two and watch the boats. It’s a dark sunglasses and Jimmy Buffet kind of place. You get the vibe.
For those of you who’d rather enjoy a crush cocktail by your private pool or on your screened porch or deck rather than risk being seen drinking one in public, trust me, I understand. Here’s a recipe for an Orange Crush I particularly like. It comes from a certain cocktail connoisseur on Sussex Street who wishes to remain anonymous.
- Pour two healthy shots of Kettle One vodka into a 12 ounce Tervis Tumbler.
- Add a half shot of triple sec.
- Squeeze one Valencia orange, best purchased from the Royal Farms store because they sit around awhile and get juicy.
- Add a lot of ice and then fill gently with Sprite, but not too much.
- Go sit by the pool.
- Repeat.
- Repeat again.
And finally, before I close out this column, let me leave you with one final observation. Back in high school, yours truly was known for mixing up a pretty darn good cocktail made from Smirnoff Vodka stolen from the family liquor cabinet and Orange Crush soda purchased from the IGA. At least all the underage drinkers in my crowd thought so back in the late 1970s in the hills of southwestern Virginia. You hear that, Harborside, the 1970s! Now, I’m not going so far as to claim to be the true originator of the Orange Crush Cocktail because, as I said earlier, these kinds of claims are tricky to prove. But if it sounds like a duck and it tastes like a duck…. Hey, I’m just putting it out there.
Rich Barnett is the author of The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town, and Fun with Dick and James. More from Rich Barnett.
