Maryland Governor Wes Moore likely had other official duties on June 1, but none more important to constituents who enjoy a refreshing tipple than designating the Orange Crush—a blend of fresh orange juice, vodka, triple sec, and lemon-lime soda—as the state’s official cocktail.
The political process of elevating the sunrise-hued concoction to such lofty status was fairly speedy. But the saga of how the drink became so beloved, complete with competition from a bordering state, began thirty years ago at Harborside Bar & Grill in Ocean City, Maryland, according to the restaurant’s co-owner, Chris Wall. (A few other establishments lay claim to originating the drink, including Ocean City’s the Bearded Clam, but Harborside’s account seems to garner the most support.)
On that particular late-summer day in 1995, Wall and other staffers were closing down a deck bar and, instead of hauling all the booze and other ingredients back inside, indulged in some experimentation. “We’d started using juicers and fresh fruit, an idea we definitely did steal from the Bearded Clam the year before, and Stoli Orange had just been introduced,” he recalls, noting that the use of freshly squeezed juice instead of premade jugs is key. “We started tasting different stuff, and by the end of it we came up with the Orange Crush. It was put on the menu and just took off.”
It had staying power, too, thanks to day-drinking beachgoers and late-night revelers alike. How popular is it? Well, Harborside orders Valencia oranges by the truckload, and Wall estimates that the bar has slung well more than a million Crushes over the years. Other bars took notice, spreading the Crush to beach towns in Virginia and Delaware and on to Baltimore. “People would ask me if the copycats made me mad,” Wall says with a shrug. “But the margarita started somewhere, right?”
Still, Wall was taken aback when Delaware took the bold step of declaring the Crush its state cocktail in 2024. So was Ben Cardin, then a U.S. senator from Maryland, who challenged Delaware senator Chris Coons to a friendly cocktail-making contest in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Room on Capitol Hill. Colleagues and staffers declared Hardin the winner.
This year the Maryland General Assembly took up the Crush’s cause, and Wall found himself and his trusty Hamilton Beach 932 juicer in Annapolis, whipping up cocktails—and votes—among a throng of state senators and representatives. Still, the effort stalled in the Senate until it was added as an amendment to a bill naming chromite as the state mineral. That bill passed unanimously at 11:58 p.m. on the final day of the 2025 legislative session—appropriate for a drink that’s been ordered at many a last call.
As soon as the bill became law, Moore knocked back a tall Crush at a political gathering, saying, “I’m good friends with Delaware governor Matt Meyer. Matt, I want to be very clear that Maryland is the home of the Orange Crush.”
