Arnold Palmer drink celebrating 25 years of success

ORLANDO – Chris Byrd and his golf group were sitting out a rain delay at a golf course in St. Louis more than 25 years ago when he ordered an Arnold Palmer, the lovely combination of iced tea and lemonade. That sparked a conversation on the concept of marketing the drink to the men that became his business partners – Charlie Beck and Mark Dowey – in what would become Innovative Flavors, Inc. – and before they knew it they were scratching out a business plan on the back of a napkin.

“Every bartender knew what an Arnold Palmer was, but he’d never made a penny off it,” Byrd recalled. “It was an idea whose time had come.”

Twenty-five years ago, the official Arnold Palmer beverage was born, sold by the AriZona Beverage Company as the Arnold Palmer Half & Half and becoming one of the fastest-growing beverages in the U.S. with sales of more than 400 million cans each year.

“This milestone isn’t just about shelf success,” Byrd said. “It’s about shared vision and trust. Arnold Palmer brought a name and a legacy; AriZona brought scale and creativity. Together, we built a brand that feels timeless, not trendy, and that’s rare in the beverage world.”

As the story goes, Palmer conceived the idea of mixing these two refreshing drinks together one day in the late 1960s to his first wife, Winnie.

“My wife made a lot of iced tea for lunch, and I said, ‘Hey, babe, I’ve got an idea. You make the iced tea and make a big pitcher, and we’ll just put a little lemonade in it and see how that works.’ We mixed it up, and I got the solution about where I wanted it and I put the lemonade in it,” he recalled in an “ESPN 30 for 30” short. “I had it for lunch after working on the golf course. I thought, ‘Boy, this is great, babe. I’m going to take it when I play golf. I’m going to take a thermos of iced tea and lemonade.’ ”

Years later, as he told it, Palmer was at a restaurant in Palm Springs, Calif., working on one of his golf course designs. He ordered the concoction, a woman nearby overheard his order and told the waitress, “I want what he ordered. I want an Arnold Palmer.”

Byrd had sipped the delicious drink over the years and had experience in the food and beverage industry, previously working as the president of a chocolate division, developing ice cream flavors and selling dairy products. In the summer, many of his dairy clients converted their fluid lines to tea and lemonade.

He made the coldest of cold calls to IMG, who managed Palmer’s business affairs and licensing deals, and was granted a meeting on the Monday after Tiger Woods won the 2001 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Byrd whipped up 10 copies of his business plan at Kinkos and brought three samples, including one from his flavor house (Allen Flavors in New Jersey).

Byrd lived down the road from Palmer’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge but had never met the legendary golfer before. As he wrote in his self-published book, “The Original Arnold Palmer Tea Story,” Byrd had been 12 years old when he watched Palmer play in a tournament at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, in 1962. After the round, Byrd’s mom, who waited tables there, took Palmer’s order and he gave her hug. “He did that because her name was Birdie,” Byrd wrote.

It rained in Orlando on the day of Byrd’s presentation. He waited in a conference room until Palmer’s right-hand man, Alistair Johnston, joined him. Byrd walked him through the first few pages of the business plan until Johnston interrupted, got up and left and returned with Palmer.

“Young man, I understand you have something very interesting for me,” Palmer said.

Indeed, he did. Byrd poured his sample and had Palmer blind taste-test his blend of iced tea and lemonade against the current offerings already on the market from Minute Maid and Paul Newman.

“He liked ours the best, thank goodness,” Byrd recalled.

Then they got down to brass tacks and Johnston did what he normally would do when someone wanted to partner with his living legend for a client: He asked for the world, mostly in upfront money.

“I said, ‘It’s been the greatest presentation of my life. But I’m willing to walk away because I can’t put up that kind of money that you’re asking for. I’m just not going to do it. So, why don’t you just do the idea yourself,” Byrd recalled.

Then he asked if anyone had any questions. Palmer had one.

“You’re giving up that easy?” Palmer said.

Byrd repeated that he couldn’t afford to write a big check.

Palmer was empathetic to his plight. “Can’t you get creative?” he wondered. Rather than show Byrd the door, he was a savvy enough businessman to realize that Byrd had the necessary industry connections to make this concept succeed and he was willing to cut him a deal so he could give it a try.

Thinking quickly on his feet, Byrd said to turn to the page of his business plan with the royalty model for the next five years. There could be some wiggle room, and he offered to negotiate.

“I like it,” Palmer said. “Let’s get this done.”

They shook hands and two months later the contracts were signed.

Byrd toured the country with Palmer, taking him to meet everyone from presidents of supermarkets to customers, where he’d tell a few stories and send them home with an autographed picture of The King.

“Whenever we crossed paths at Bay Hill,” Byrd recounted, “he’d stop and ask, ‘Hey Chris, are we selling more Half & Half today?’ I’d give him a thumbs-up — and today, through our partnership with AriZona Beverages, that simple drink sells more than one million cans every day.”

While the business originally launched with the buy-in of 10 dairies, Byrd and his business partners soon realized there was greater upside in the shelf-stable formula. Dowey, one of three founding partners of Innovative Flavors, told Golfweek in a 2016 story that his company soon began receiving calls “from golfers’ wives saying their husbands were seeing the drink at their clubs but couldn’t find it anywhere else.”

They targeted AriZona at the recommendation of Allen Flavors, which also created many of its best-selling products. The eponymous Arnold Palmer, often sold in a 23 oz. big-boy commemorative can, wasn’t exactly an overnight success.

“Over the first few years, I say, most companies our size would have given up on it,” said Don Vultaggio, Arizona’s chairman, in a 2013 ABC News story. “Because, you know, if the numbers don’t reach what I’ll call a ‘meaningful number’ after six months, most large companies will say, ‘Eh, it’s not worth it.'”

But Vultaggio gave the product a longer leash because he liked Palmer and believed “there was gold there, but it was deep down.”

By 2008, Arnold Palmer Iced Tea was doubling its sales, distributing bottles of almost every size, from the most popular 99-cent can version to the 64-ounce plastic container. An anniversary seal will be on all Half & Half products in 2026, and the company is selling a special-edition can this year for America’s 250th anniversary, which features Palmer in his Coast Guard uniform. The company also is sampling a new product at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational: the Arnold Palmer Southern Style Half & Half, which is made with Sweet Tea and is also available at concessions. It was reported that sales exceeded $100 million in 2010. Byrd said it has continued to grow with retail sales of more than $400 million.

“When we first approached Mr. Palmer nearly three decades ago, we believed his signature drink could become something enduring,” Byrd said. “What we couldn’t have predicted was how a simple blend of iced tea and lemonade would become part of American culture. The fact that people still reach for that iconic can 25 years later speaks not just to a great partnership, but to a genuine connection with consumers.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Arnold Palmer drink’s 25 year journey to fame