Shirley Temple Recipe

Before iPads became the easy way to entertain children while dining out, cloyingly sweet and adorably pink Shirley Temples were the go-to parenting tool for keeping kids happy while in a crowded restaurant. I was one of those kids whose parents relied on a Shirley Temple to get through a meal out in public without me making a scene. Between the ages of roughly four and six, every time my family would dine out, I (like a lot of children that age) would shift from being an adorable, charming little girl into a bit of a monster who would hide under the table if my sister looked at me funny, or my brother breathed too hard. (As a parent, I now live through similar scenarios with my own kids.)

The only way I’d emerge would be after my mom handed me a Shirley Temple with no fewer than five maraschino cherries. Within the first few sips of that delightfully saccharine and effervescent rosy drink, I’d calm down, come to my senses, and rejoin my siblings at the table, ignoring the overpriced chicken fingers in front of me while I’d savor the slow squish of every cherry and delight in attempting to tie the cherry stems with my tongue (I never did nail that trick). 

While I can now control my emotional outbursts (most of the time) and I recognize that my mother is a total saint for putting up with my childhood shenanigans, my love for Shirley Temples hasn’t changed. A great Shirley Temple is more than just a drink: It’s a sugary moment of nostalgia for so many adults like me. While I don’t drink as many Shirley Temples as I used to, it’s nice to enjoy one every now and then, and to share my love of them with my kids. The best part is that they can easily be made at home with just three main ingredients: ginger ale or lemon-lime soda, grenadine, and maraschino cherries.

Origins of the Shirley Temple

Obviously, this beloved drink was named after the late child star Shirley Temple Black, but the origins of why and exactly where the drink was invented are debatable. According to Time, it’s believed that sometime in the 1930s while Temple, who would have been about 12 at the time, was dining out in Hollywood at either Chasen’s or Brown Derby Restaurant, the waitstaff concocted the mixture of soda and grenadine for her on the spot and added it as a child-friendly nonalcoholic option to the bar menu. From there, it grew in popularity across the U.S.

The 3 Ingredients in a Classic Shirley Temple

The ingredient list of a Shirley Temple is as simple as the drink is sweet—soda, grenadine, and maraschino cherries. The soda can be either ginger ale or lemon-lime. I grew up on the east coast where most restaurants serve it with ginger ale, but there are many recipes that call for lemon-lime soda, such as Sprite or 7UP. There’s no wrong choice among the two, so stick with your preferred mixer, combine the two, or feel free to cut the soda with sparkling water to tame the sweetness of the drink.

You can use old standbys for the sodas, or go with boutique or specialty sodas such as Reed’s ginger ale, which has a great fiery kick. You can even spike it with some vodka to turn it into a trendy “Dirty Shirley.” When it comes to the grenadine, you can be ambitious and make your own with our DIY grenadine recipe, but really there’s no need. I’ve made and tasted the basic recipe here with Schweppes ginger ale and store-bought grenadine as well as versions with “upgraded” components like homemade grenadine and specialty soda, and I always lean toward the classic version I know and love from my childhood, but go with your preference. Fire-engine red maraschino cherries are arguably the most important part of the Shirley Temple experience. They’re loaded with nostalgia, and, in my opinion, you should add as many as can fit into the glass. Luxardo cherries are a great option, but I prefer the glow of artificially-dyed cherries in mine.

If you’re feeling fancy, a squeeze of lime to finish the drink cuts through the sweetness. But I prefer to revel in the sugar high—few moments in adult life are ever this sweet.