What about this unassuming drink has made it such a hit? “It’s popular because it’s not a pretentious cocktail - it can be made by anyone, really,” says the mysterious taste-tester behind the Twitter For the past three summers, the account’s anonymous owner, who lives in Ocean City, has embarked on a self-guided “Crush Tour,” patronizing 50-plus venues in a search for the best renditions. The investments seem to have paid off: McComas says he sold 300,000 Crushes in the 2015 calendar year. At his suburban location in Timonium, McComas installed a walk-in refrigerator dedicated solely to storing fresh fruit-loads of oranges, but also lemons, limes and grapefruits-for his menu’s eight other variations. He likes it better for Crushes than conventional cubes-it looks prettier and melts better. This is a man who takes process seriously. Each of his restaurants is equipped with a pricey ice machine that spits out 2,500 pounds of “fish ice”-those slow-melting, buckshot-size pellets that keep your Blue Points chilly. “In the 2000s, you started to see it migrate, across the Bay and into the city,” says Brian McComas, whose three Ryleigh’s Oyster outposts have won “best of Baltimore” awards for their Crushes. A refreshing, non-threatening hot-weather option that satisfies both bonafide lushes and people who claim to hate the flavor of alcohol, it quickly began catching on at establishments outside Ocean City-call it Crushifest Destiny. No level of fealty to the originator could prevent the Crush from spreading its Vitamin C-laden wings. “I have no idea why,” says Lewis, “but everybody says that they just taste better here.” It’s since been replicated by dozens of establishments, but nothing has slowed Harborside’s sales. The bar’s current build, which shares bits of DNA with drinks like the 007, the Greyhound and even the Daiquiri, is not a secret: cubed ice, two ounces each orange vodka and triple sec, the juice of one crushed orange and a splash of Sierra Mist. Harborside owners Chris Wall and Lloyd Whitehead, along with their friend Jerry Wood and bartender Kelly Flynn, invented the Crush more than 20 years ago, screwing around with a bottle of Stoli O on a slow Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1995. It’s a drink created in Maryland, by Marylanders, and by all accounts that’s good enough for them. It demands no bottled-in-bond spirits or artisanal bitters it requires no pre-Prohibition coupes, shoegaze-inspired nicknames or maraca-esque overhead shaking. Popular though it may be, the Orange Crush is not hip. A squirt of lemon-lime soda finishes off the Old Line State’s unofficial cocktail, a concoction that’s crept from its laidback beach town beginnings to become a coastal phenomenon. “We’re all disproportional,” jokes Lewis, who’s tended bar at Harborside for 12 years. Harborsiders repeat this same motion thousands upon thousands of times each season, reps that lead to Popeye-like dominant-arm definition. The key to a Crush is actually its namesake action-the swift yanking of an industrial press juicer that flattens fresh orange halves, sending frothy OJ plummeting into a pint glass filled with ice, vodka and triple sec.
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