The Drink Elvis Often Paired With His Coffee

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It's no secret that legendary rockstar Elvis Presley had a hunk o' burning love for eating, with the list of his favorite foods resembling a greatest hits album of Southern goodies. As for drinks, he famously eschewed alcohol, but was a huge fan of Pepsi and Gatorade. However, there's one other drink he was fond of and it would sit next to his coffee at the breakfast table: orange juice.

In his 2008 book, The Elvis Encyclopedia: A Visual Compendium of the King of Rock and Roll, writer and researcher Adam Victor wrote that Presley would pair his morning coffee with orange juice. On paper, it's a natural combination — OJ and coffee are breakfast classics on their own, so why not have them both to start the day? The pairing makes even more sense when you factor in Presley's notoriously sweet tooth and the energy demands of his rockstar lifestyle.

The pairing also works because they share similar flavor compounds. When drunk separately, you'll notice that the orange juice tends to brighten up the palate between sips of coffee, while the coffee helps balance out the fruit's sweeter, zestier notes. It's why directly adding orange to your pourover coffee is a solid idea, and why you're likely seeing more citrus-based espresso cocktails in cafes.

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According to a 1993 story in the Los Angeles Times, Elvis Presley's Graceland Manor had a lengthy list of grocery items to be kept in the kitchen and house at all times. Along with a lot of lean bacon — a greasy obsession of Presley's — the manor had to be stocked with a case of orange drink and fresh, hand-squeezed orange juice. Since orange drink usually contains little to no fruit juice and is sometimes carbonated (Presley was reportedly a big fan of Nesbitt's), it's likely that the orange juice he enjoyed with his coffee was the hand-squeezed stuff.

His coffee preferences, at least based on The Elvis Encyclopedia: A Visual Compendium of the King of Rock and Roll, appeared to follow his doctor's advice. Presley took his morning coffee with half-and-half and Sweet'N Low, with the latter being a "concession to his diet," according to the book. Alongside the fresh orange juice, his breakfast beverages were actually quite conservative given his legendarily indulgent eating habits.

In fact, his relatively moderate choice of drinks may have been offset by the types of breakfast he had it with. Presley's longtime personal cook, Mary Jenkins Langston, once shared that he'd enjoy a platter of butter-fried biscuits, sausage patties, four scrambled eggs, and some bacon in the mornings (via the New York Times). It's good to know that The King was at least washing down all that greasy goodness with OJ and coffee, which are both acidic enough to cut through the fat.