Robert “Bobby” Lozoff, the former manager of the famous Blue Max nightclub on Front Street in Lahaina, is gaining fame for mixing a drink more than 40 years ago for the Rolling Stones.

The 68-year-old Lahaina resident recently was featured on television news and print and online media, mostly in the San Francisco Bay area, for a commercial he recently taped for Jose Cuervo tequila in Sausalito, Calif. He doesn’t know where or when it will run; it is still being edited in New York.

“In the latest Cuervo commercial, I’m the main guy. (I’m) surprised. They sent me back to my old bar. They sent me back to the Trident.”

Lozoff, who now teaches computer classes for senior citizens, was back in picturesque Sausalito last week at the new incarnation of the Trident (the original closed in 1975), where he originally mixed up a Tequila Sunrise for the Rolling Stones as a bartender in his 20s.

Because the drink included Jose Cuervo tequila, Lozoff was asked to be part of the Jose Cuervo marketing and advertising campaign that focuses on the Stones’ 1972 tour that band member Keith Richards dubbed the “Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise Tour.” Apparently, after drinking it at the Trident, the band took the concoction on tour with them. Lozoff said Richards mentions the drink in his book “Life.”

From his condominium in Lahaina on Monday, Lozoff recalled Richards and Mick Jagger asking for a margarita at the Trident, which was frequented by musicians, Hells Angels and big-time marijuana sellers. But Lozoff asked if they wanted something different with tequila instead. He used the liquor in many of his drinks because of the Mexican pot runners who were customers.

“That’s what they drank (so) I started making everything made with vodka or gin with tequila.”

When Richards drank Lozoff’s Tequila Sunrise, “You could see the light go off in his head,” Lozoff recalled.

The drink consists of tequila, orange juice and grenadine. Lozoff fashioned it after the Singapore Sling, a similar drink that used gin. (Others have also claimed to be the inventor of the Tequila Sunrise.)

And Lozoff used Jose Cuervo because it was the only tequila he could get consistently. He added he’s not saying that for the benefit of Jose Cuervo.

“I did use it. I really did.”

“At those days in the ’70s, there was a lot of fly-by-night tequila. The worm in the bottle, that kind of stuff,” he said.

So Jose Cuervo won out as tequila, and lots of it, was needed for the hundreds of customers who would wait outside for the bar to open. Lozoff’s drinks were simple, and his job was about service and getting the drinks out to 14 waitresses.

Ironically, Lozoff isn’t a drinker and never was.

Getting behind the Trident’s bar and seeing his old neighborhood was pleasing to Lozoff, who left the Trident in December 1975. He began there as a dishwasher at 19 years old and worked his way up.

“It was kind of really nice,” he said of being back to the Bay Area. “Marin County (where Sausalito is located) was home previously to Maui.”

Lozoff became a Mac technician around 1985, when he retired from the Blue Max. The last time he was in the Bay Area was in 2008, when he attended a presentation by the late Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs.

He was lured to Maui by Sharon and John Lawrence, the owners of the Blue Max, where Lahaina Pizza Co. is now located. The couple saw him work in the Bay Area and invited him to Maui.

Lozoff flew to Maui when he was 27 years old and “basically never left. I had my dog sent over. I had my boats sent over. I went from one to the other seamlessly.”

The notable musicians and entertainers followed. Lozoff was friends with the late Bill Graham, the rock music promoter, who threw the party for the Rolling Stones at the Trident. Lozoff also met many other entertainers at the Sausalito bar.

He remembers a young Robin Williams from nearby Tiburon, Calif., who worked as a busboy at the Trident.

“He had all this nervous energy,” Lozoff recalls of the late actor. Williams had a scholarship from the Juilliard School in New York but when he came back for breaks, he had his job at the Trident.

Lozoff recalls asking Williams to go get some ice. Williams would come back with ice in a bucket and give it to Lozoff but then “give some kind of ‘Mork and Mindy’ voice.”

Williams went on to play the extraterrestrial Mork in the sitcom “Mork and Mindy,” which ran from 1978 to 1982. He made high-pitched sounds and invented language in the show.

On Maui, Lozoff brought singer Linda Ronstadt and comedians Cheech and Chong to the Blue Max. Entertainers who weren’t booked at the Lahaina hot spot also made appearances.

One included Elton John. Lozoff said John felt so comfortable at the Blue Max when visiting Maui that he came out of retirement in 1977 to perform at the local spot.

John’s only request was for a grand piano.

“And man, he had enough discipline to come in and practice (at 8 a.m.). That’s the best performance I had seen.”

Lozoff, a Canadian by birth, left that country in 1968, disillusioned by Quebec separatists. He visited a friend in Sausalito, but had a rocky start.

“He borrowed all my money and didn’t give it back,” Lozoff said. “(But) I took a job at the Trident, which worked out.”

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.