What is Shirley Temple?

A Shirley Temple is a sweet, non-alcoholic drink named after the child actress Shirley Temple. The drink was invented for Shirley by a bartender in Beverly Hills, CA. The bartender worked at Chasen’s restaurant, a place Shirley Temple often frequented as a child. Since she clearly could not drink alcohol, Chasen’s sought a drink that would appeal to Shirley’s young palate, and the Shirley Temple was born.

It’s very unusual to see a traditional Shirley Temple today. The original recipe called for two parts ginger ale, one part orange juice and about a teaspoon to tablespoon of grenadine. It was usually garnished with a cherry and possibly an orange slice. While the cherry remains, and is many children’s favorite part about the Shirley Temple, most modern versions of the drink don’t include orange juice.

The ginger ale in the modern Shirley Temple is usually substituted with lemon-lime soda. These include sodas like Sprite or 7-Up, but usually not Mountain Dew since it is high in caffeine. Sometimes the Shirley Temple is made with Squirt, which has notes of grapefruit flavor in it.

The goal of the Shirley Temple is to contrast the sparkle and acid of the soda base with the sweet grenadine. Too much grenadine makes the drink painfully sweet, so a minimal amount should be added. Grenadine really functions as color, as opposed to flavor. A related drink is the Roy Rogers cocktail, made from cola and grenadine — essentially a cherry coke.

Due to the popularity of Shirley Temple the actress, the drink created for her caught on, and children dining out with their parents were apt to order a Shirley Temple. Today children may order one without understanding the reference. A few companies attempted to bottle the Shirley Temple, leading to the first soft drink that actually contained a cherry. These bottled attempts gradually lost popularity, but you can still find cherry 7-Up, representing the modern Shirley Temple.

Unlike many mixed drinks that are created for adults and modified for children, the Shirley Temple underwent a reverse process. People wanted to make the drink alcoholic, and tried by adding various alcohols to the drink. A Shirley Temple Black mixes 7-up, Kahlua and grenadine. A Dirty Shirley, also called a Shirley Vomit, is a combination of lemon-lime soda, vodka and grenadine.