By all means taste your drink and add if you prefer it on the sweet side. Some versions also contain simple (sugar) syrup, I don’t think it is needed. You only need a tablespoon (15ml/ 1/2 oz) of each of these spirits for a single serving, plus some ice-cold Cola to top and lime or lemon slices to garnish.įor a lighter version use only a teaspoon of each of the spirits. It doesn’t sound like it should work and yet it does, in major way! It is mega refreshing and the simple ratios of the Long Island Iced Tea recipe make it perfect for scaling up to serve at parties and barbecues. Simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water and stir until your sugar dissolves.So what IS in a Long Island Iced Tea? Brace yourselves… This cocktail contains the better part of your drinks cabinet, no fewer than FIVE spirits. Composing your sweet and sour yourself-which is to say, using simple syrup and fresh lemon juice-is the best and only way to make this drink taste great. Simple Syrup & Lemon Juice: The original calls for a “splash of sweet and sour,” but I wager you haven’t read this far because you want to take the word of the 1970s about it. If you want your Long Island to taste good in addition to putting you on the floor, Cointreau, or its chief rival Combier, is how you do it. Generally speaking, your cocktail is only as good as its weakest ingredient, and too many otherwise good drinks are ruined by a crappy triple sec. You always want 100 percent agave-even here-but you want the tequila here to add a small bite, but not be so flavorful and intense that it distracts too much.Ĭointreau: This is an 80-proof orange liqueur and is one of the two most important pieces of advice I have for this drink. Personally, I go with my favorite Margarita tequilas-something inexpensive and not too earthy-like Real de Valle, Cimarron or Milagro. Tequila is the strongest flavor here and will define it. Tequila: This is the choice that matters most. Vodka: Brand of vodka is rarely important, but it has never mattered less than it does here. If I had my pick I’d use something like Plantation 3-star or Flor de Cana, but something like Bacardi is absolutely fine. Honestly again, the rum used in almost all Long Islands is Bacardi or some other type of vaguely tropical rum, which is fine, and really the rum’s role here is mostly filler, and its sole job is to not screw everything up by being too cheap and gross. You can use fuller gin if you like, but again, it will matter less here than in other drinks. I suspect 99.5 percent of Long Island Iced Teas across the globe are made with some light, barely there gin, the cheap stuff in the well and are no worse off for it. Gin: Type of gin matters less here than you might think. If history were to start all over from the beginning, the reinvention of drinks like the Margarita or Mojito would be inevitable, but it’s hard to imagine something like the Long Island Iced Tea happening again. Its existence seems to be a strange product of a particular time and place-specifically Long Island, in the 1970s. The excellent book Cocktail Codex generously assesses it as a variation of a Sidecar, which is to say, a spirit base with citrus tartness and orange liqueur. However, the tool is distinct from the user, so what is the Long Island Iced Tea? It is a tall drink with a base spirit in four parts- vodka, gin, rum and tequila, “everything white at the bartenders station,” according to the inventor Bob “Rosebud” Butt-with orange liqueur, a splash of sour mix and topped with coke. This is why bartenders tend to not like them-it’s not because they’re difficult to make, or even some kind of pretentious dismissal of the “flavor profile.” It is because we have a legal responsibility to make sure no one gets too drunk, so if someone says “give me a Long Island” (or god forbid, a “Strong Island”), what we hear is “there’s a decent chance that pretty soon, I’m going to become a problem for you.” acknowledges that “the recipe reads more like a frat-house hazing ritual,” and Jeffrey Morgenthaler’ points out that the drink dominated the world, but also took up residence in “dorm rooms, seedy karaoke bars and overturned glasses next to some poor bastard curled up by a toilet.” There are some who earnestly enjoy it, but many more who are trying to get as drunk as possible and believe (accurately) that the Long Island Iced Tea is the quickest way to get there. It has been understood, since the ‘70s, as “one of the most famous hangover instigators the bar has ever known,” according to Punch. Wyoming Whiskey Made Just 150 Bottles of Its Oldest BourbonĪll the same-we have to acknowledge that the Long Island Iced Tea has something of a reputation itself. How James Corden Got Himself Banned (Then Unbanned) From One of NYC’s Most Beloved Restaurants Noma Will Open a 10-Week Pop-Up in Japan Next Year
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