Here's What's In Helen Mirren's Namesake Cocktail

Dame Helen Mirren recently made a guest appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and she came bearing a little gift for host Clarkson. Mirren told Clarkson, "I'm going to introduce you to a cocktail." Two cocktails in martini glasses soon made it on stage, and Mirren said, "Now the name of this cocktail is the 'Helen F*****g Mirren."

Her namesake cocktail is made with Darjeeling liqueur, Earl Grey tea, vodka, lemon, habanero, and honey. Once the laughs from the audience died down, Mirren explained that the drink was from her favorite bar in New Orleans, called Pal's Lounge. Pal's was owned by Mirren's late stepson, Rio Hackford (who died in 2022), and when bartenders Laura Walch and Charla Zot came up with the finished product, they realized they had to come up with a name for it. 

During the livestream chat with Clarkson and Mirren, Walch explained, "When we were deciding what we were going to call it, we just thought, well, it's spicy, and it's British. So, the spiciest British person we could think of is obviously Dame Helen Mirren."

Helen Mirren makes a regular habit of visiting New Orleans yearly, in part to visit the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. An annual visit to Pal's Lounge is simply a bit of that tradition, but her connection to New Orleans goes back further than just the occasional trip. Mirren used to live in New Orleans with her husband Taylor Hackford in the French Quarter neighborhood, so she's got some personal history with the city.

Mirren told Architectural Digest in 2016 that, "The first time Taylor [Hackford] brought me to New Orleans, all I could say was, 'I'm going to die here.' Like Venice. And that same decadent, romantic, slow sweetness comes over me every time I return." It looks like Mirren must have made quite an impression on the city as well, because being an Oscar-winning actress is one thing, but having a spicy-sweet cocktail named after you almost feels like another level of fame altogether.