How the ‘Shirley Temple King’ is changing restaurants

When I was a young girl, my grandfather would occasionally pick me up to take me to my grandparents’ farm for the weekend. On the way home we would stop at a local bar, where he would have a beer with his buddies while I nursed a Shirley Temple. At five years old, I thought that was the height of sophistication – the drink came with a maraschino cherry garnish! However, my knowledge of the non-alcoholic drink began and ended with those trips, unlike 11-year-old Leo Kelly, who has been a connoisseur of the drink for years and is known online as the ‘Shirley Temple King.’ With all the crazy stuff going on in the world right now, this is exactly the kind of story I needed to read.

Leo approaches the iconic beverage with a critic’s eye, traveling to restaurants with his parents to order the drink. Renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten recalls being nervous about creating a version of the Shirley Temple when he learned that Leo would be evaluating it at Vongerichten’s NYC restaurant Happy Monkey. Working until the last minute, he and his team devised a drink using small batch grenadine, homemade ginger syrup and Tajín seasoning. The effort was a success, with Leo bestowing a rating of 9.3 (on a scale of 1 to 10).

The pint-sized critic has over 240,000 followers on Instagram, although his parents are quick to point out that this is a hobby for Leo, not a profession. Despite this not being a full-time endeavor, Leo has the power to make restaurants change their version of the Shirley Temple simply by posting a bad review. The LongHorn Steakhouse chain revised its recipe at 500+ locations after receiving an unsatisfactory 5.0 (for serving the drink with zero cherries). Leo prefers ginger ale to lemon-lime soda, but says “This is just my opinion…I’m not going to come for anybody who likes lemon-lime soda.”