The historical fable of its origins dates it to the 1700s. A young Spanish girl was forced to flee Jamaica, and the family plantation during a conflict. She was accompanied by a sole servant who carried a bit of jewelry and the recipe for the family liqueur. In honor of the woman’s help, the girl named the liqueur “Tia Maria,” her name for the woman who had helped save her life. One account of its history says that a man named Dr. Evans discovered the drink after World War II, and he began reproducing it.

This story of Dr. Evans devotion to the drink is part of the official website’s history, however. According to some sources, it was actually created in Jamaica in the 1930s. The Jamaican company Lascelles supposedly manufactured the concentrate from which the liqueur was made, at least, up until the time it was sold by Pernod.