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Arnold Palmer Had His…What Would Your Drink Be?

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Last Updated on February 3, 2022

Golfing legend Arnold Palmer, who passed away over the weekend, had a drink named after him. What would a drink named after you be like?

Besides his legacy in the golf world, the late Arnold Palmer is credited with creating one of the world’s greatest drinks. The story behind the Arnold Palmer, according to Palmer himself, was simple: he asked his wife one day to add some lemonade to her iced tea and really, really liked the result. He even took the mixture in a thermos to work with him when he returned to the golf course.

Palmer told ESPN he was building a golf course in Palm Springs, California on a particularly hot day. At lunch, he made a special request:

I said to the waitress, “Could you do me a favor?” And she said, “Sure, what is it?” I said, “I want an iced tea, but I want about a third or about a quarter of it in lemonade.” All of a sudden, the waitress went over to another table and the lady at the table said, “I want an Arnold Palmer.” Well, all of us turned our head. I thought, “What is she talking about.” She said, “I want what he ordered.”

From there, he said, it spread like wildfire.

I’ve had an Arnold Palmer, and I don’t mind it, but to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of lemon and iced tea together. For one thing, I don’t drink unsweetened tea. So when you mix sweet lemonade into sweet tea, it can be a bit too sweet for me.

I don’t even care for the little lemon wedge in the tea. When my best friend and I go out to have a meal together, we’re the perfect pair when it comes to our tea and lemon habits: I order a large tea with no lemon wedge and he orders a large tea with extra lemon wedges. We balance it all perfectly.

Palmer surely wasn’t the first person to mix tea and lemonade, but he’s unquestionably the one who popularized the result.

If I could have a drink named after me — and I don’t think I’d want one named after me — it’d be Diet Coke with Lime. Whenever I go to Zaxby’s for fried chicken, for example, that’s what I order. That’s because Zaxby’s is one of the few restaurants around that has one of those fancy Coke machines with the seemingly endless supply of drink combinations so you can select less-common drinks or mix up your own. Diet Coke with Lime is a valid Coke product, but it’s only sold in certain stores and only available (as far as I can tell) in cans, not 20-ounce bottles.

But for whatever reason, I love it.

So if I could have a drink named after me, that’d be it: the Diet Coke with Lime. But to be honest, I think their name is a better choice.

If you could have a drink you like named after you, which drink would you choose?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.