Long Island Iced Tea

The Long Island Iced Tea is a very sneaky one. It is a popular mixed drink that, despite its name might suggest, it contains no tea. It is one of those mixed drinks that tastes good going down but can quickly sneak up on you. So you better take it easy on this one!

Long Island Iced Tea is what happens when four different spirits collide to create one powerful drink. It’s not clear who thought this was a good idea and if this tastes at all like iced tea, but one can agree that the Long Island Iced Tea is responsible for a few stories of irresponsibility, at least a dozen memories of good times and even more hangovers than we can count.

The story of the Long Island Iced Tea is shrouded in mystery. But rest assured this drink is easy to master, if only one can say the same for the morning after.

Ingredients

tequila: 1 oz

rum: 1 oz

vodka: 1 oz

triple sec or Grand Marnier: 1 oz

orange juice: 2 oz

lime juice or prepare sweet-and-sour-mix: 1 oz

simple syrup: 1 oz

grenadine: 1 tsp

lime wheel: 1

How To Make Long Island Iced Tea

1. Pour the first 7 ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake.
2. Pour into a glass filled with ice. Add cola (if using) and grenadine. Stir.
3. Garnish with lime wheel and serve.

Trivia

1. Some claim that the drink, like most cocktails, was invented during the Prohibition era, as a way of taking the appearance of a non-alcoholic drink (iced tea). A lemon slice is often added to enhance this resemblance. To some, the drink also shares a similar taste to tea. This has led to its frequent use in fiction as a method to get a teetotaler drunk.
2. When America went dry—legally, at least—in the 1920s, iced tea found new advocates in bars and clubs, which needed to quench the thirst of patrons without breaking the law.
3. Iced tea’s popularity was soaring in the early part of the 20th century, but tea vendors weren’t the only beneficiaries. To aid in serving, consumers began buying tall glasses in such quantity they were known as “iced tea glasses.” They also bought long stirring spoons and tiny forks meant to spear lemons.
4. Lipton served up a mammoth 12.5-foot tall pitcher of iced tea in October 2015 that Guinness marked as the largest ever dispensed. The giant-sized receptacle needed eight large bags of tea, 2204 gallons of water, and an undisclosed amount of ice. The novelty was intended to commemorate Lipton’s 125th anniversary.