The cocktail, Sex on the Beach, is made from vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, and cranberry juice.

One interesting version of its origin –
The earliest known invention of the cocktail and name dates back to 1987 in Florida, USA. A distributor had just begun to sell a new product, peach schnapps, in the autumn. With many tourists due for the spring holiday the distributor devised a contest that would pay the bar that sold the most peach schnapps a bonus of $1000 and the bartender that was responsible at that bar for the highest sales would receive $100.

A young bartender named Ted, working at Confetti’s Bar, mixed up a peach schnapps, vodka, orange juice and grenadine cocktail. When Ted began to sell the drink, he was asked what it was called. On the spot, Ted thought what the main reason was that people came to Florida for their Spring break – it was The Beach and Sex.

“Sex on the Beach!” he replied, and as the drink gained fame that spring, thousands of students returned home and asked their local bartenders for ‘Sex on the Beach.’ The bartenders did not know how to make a drink they had never heard of so they asked around and this led to the many regional variations of the drink.

I am a cocktail kind of girl. Maybe the sweetness of the chilled alcoholic beverage is what appeals to me. Wine I find sour, Beer I find bitter and of course Whiskey takes bitterness to another level for me, I’m unashamed to say. I’ve tasted most of the sweet flavoured cocktails and I love most of them.

In my throes of culinary inventiveness, I dreamed up my series of cakes tasting like my favourite cocktails. Developing the recipes, I realised that all the goodness of fresh fruit, dried fruit and herbs was being used to flavour my cakes. So, in fact they are nutritious cakes.  To add the alcohol or not is an option. I’ve kept the base cake recipe the same, adding flavourings and alcohol according to the cocktail I was being inspired by.

My post on the series of cocktail flavoured cakes can be read on Cocktail in a Cake.

Sex on the Beach Cocktail Cake

Ingredients ~

100 gms soft butter
100 gms caster sugar
110 gms flour
¼ tsp baking powder
3 eggs
100 gms chunky Orange Marmalade
50 gms Cranberries
¼ cup Mandarin flavoured Vodka

Method ~

1. Beat the butter and caster sugar till pale and double in volume.
2. Add one egg at a time, beating into the batter till well incorporated.
3. Mix the marmalade and cranberries into the batter.
4. Gently stir in the Vodka.
5. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold into the batter.
6. Pour the batter into a greased and floured baking tin.
7. Bake at 160*C for 25-30 minutes or till done.
8. Serve decorated with some marmalade and cranberries.