05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area bartender who created the tequila sunrise for the Rolling Stones has died
Robert 'Bobby' Lozoff, the Marin County bartender who helped propel the tequila sunrise from barroom obscurity to international fame after serving it to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger during the Rolling Stones' 1972 U.S. tour kickoff, died April 14 in Hawaii. He was 77.
His death was confirmed by writer, podcast host and bartender Jeff Burkhart, who chronicled Lozoff's career in Bay Area newspapers.
The cocktail's breakout moment came during a private party at the Trident, a waterfront restaurant in Sausalito known for its celebrity clientele and counterculture ambiance.
Concert promoter Bill Graham had arranged the gathering to ease the Stones' return to California following the violence at their infamous 1969 Altamont concert.
Lozoff was working behind the bar when his sweet, citrusy cocktail caught the attention of rock's biggest stars.
More Information
Billy Rice and Bobby Lozoff's Tequila Sunrise
1½ ounces Santo blanco tequila
2 ounces fresh-squeezed orange juice
¾ ounce Sonoma Syrup Co. pomegranate grenadine syrup
1 Tillen Farms Merry Maraschino all-natural stemmed cherry
1 small orange wheel
In a stemmed hurricane-style glass filled with ice, combine tequila and orange juice, and stir. Sink grenadine to bottom and garnish with orange wheel. Recipe courtesy of the Trident.
'Keith Richards walked up to the bar and asked for a margarita, and I said, 'Hey, have you ever tried this drink?' And he went, 'Alcohol? I'll try it,'' Lozoff recalled in 2016. 'So I poured him the tequila sunrise, and you could sort of see the light go on in his head. Bingo. You don't need a bartender to travel with you, just buy a bottle of Cuervo, a bottle of orange juice and grenadine.'
That drink became a fixture of the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour. Richards later dubbed it the 'cocaine and tequila sunrise tour,' a moniker that stuck in music lore. The guitarist later confirmed the story in his memoir, 'Life.'
As the band traveled across the country, so did the cocktail — eventually inspiring the 1973 Eagles song 'Tequila Sunrise,' a 1988 film of the same name and decades of pop culture references. It was later adopted in Jose Cuervo campaigns.
Lozoff was born in 1947 in Canada. After graduating from college in Montreal, he moved to the United States, landing in Northern California at the height of the counterculture era.
'The music scene in San Francisco was big in the summer of '67, '68, '69, and Marin was the county where the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin' reigned, Lozoff told the Lahaina News in 2016.
'The minute I graduated from McGill University in Montreal, I bailed to the United States and ended up in Sausalito hanging out with hippie music circles in Marin County and got involved with the Trident opening up,' he added.
Lozoff began his tenure at the restaurant at the bottom, first as a dishwasher, then a busboy.
'When I turned 21, they let me start tending bar, and I kept advancing up,' he said.
The Trident, co-owned by the Kingston Trio, was itself a hot spot for rock stars and countercultural icons.
'I was definitely a Deadhead back in the '70s, so it was always thrilling to serve (the Grateful Dead) at the Trident,' Lozoff told the SF Weekly in 2016. 'David Crosby lived down the street, and he was in quite a lot. … One of the biggest names of the time was Janis Joplin. She always came in and drank anything I would pour for her. She invited me to her wild parties that she threw at her house in Corte Madera.'
The Trident poured more tequila than any other establishment north of the border in the early '70s, and its innovative cocktail program, driven in part by Lozoff's experimentation, helped usher in a new era of American bartending.
Lozoff moved to Hawaii in 1976, where he helped open the Blue Max nightclub and later pursued a career in technology. He taught computer classes at the West Maui Senior Center and remained active in the community until his death.
In 2024, the Marin History Museum and the Trident restaurant honored Lozoff and Rice, who died in 1997, with a historical marker. Lozoff was unable to attend.
A list of survivors was not immediately available.
