Orange Creamsicle

Orange juice, cream, and vanilla — the Creamsicle in drink form, Frank Epperson's 1905 accidental invention whose Pop's Sicle nickname gave Popsicles their name.

The Orange Creamsicle drink pays tribute to one of America's most beloved frozen treats, whose origin story begins with an accidental invention. In 1905, eleven-year-old Frank Epperson of San Francisco left a cup of soda powder mixed with water on his porch overnight with a stirring stick in it. The temperature dropped, the mixture froze around the stick, and Epperson had invented what he initially called the Epsicle. He didn't commercialize the idea until 1923, when he began selling the frozen treats at Neptune Beach amusement park in Alameda, California, and filed a patent for his frozen confectionery. His children's nickname for the treat — Pop's Sicle — gave the Popsicle its enduring name. Epperson sold his rights to the Joe Lowe Company of New York in 1925, and it was Joe Lowe that developed the Creamsicle as a separate product in the 1930s: vanilla ice cream on a stick enclosed in an orange-flavored sherbet shell. The combination of citrus ice and sweet cream was immediately popular, and the Creamsicle became a staple of American summer — ice cream trucks, backyard freezers, and Fourth of July gatherings. The brand is now held by Unilever's Good Humor division and sold in multiple flavors, but the original orange-and-vanilla pairing remains the definitive version. The cocktail version recreates this nostalgic flavor profile without the stick, combining orange and cream in liquid form.