Screwdriver

The Screwdriver, a simple mix of vodka and orange juice, has no single documented inventor and instead carries several competing origin stories, all tied to the mid-20th century. The most widely repeated account traces it to American oil workers in the Persian Gulf, who mixed vodka into their orange juice for a quick, discreet drink and stirred it with the tool they had on hand, a screwdriver, giving the cocktail its name. Other versions place its creation among American servicemen during World War II, with some crediting marines and others airmen, though sources agree the drink emerged around that wartime period as vodka began gaining a foothold in American drinking culture. Because of its plain, everyday ingredients, the Screwdriver was never linked to a particular bar or bartender, and its rise tracks the broader postwar popularization of vodka in the United States.

A notable later offshoot appeared in the late 1970s. After the Florida singer and orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant became a prominent anti-gay-rights campaigner starting in 1977, gay bars organized a boycott of orange juice and dropped the Screwdriver from their menus. They replaced it with a version made with apple juice, which became known as the Anita Bryant cocktail.