Here's how to make a Long Island Iced Tea, one of the sexiest cocktails around, and it's got a striker's kick to it.
One of the sexiest cocktails with a big kick, the Long Island Iced Tea. Picture: Supplied
It’s got a kick, that’s for sure, but a Long Island Iced Tea has something seriously sexy about it.
It’s a unisex drink, not a pink drink, as a beer ad used to underline. Instead, it’s a cocktail with a history that, by some origin accounts, celebrated its centenary six years ago.
In 1920, the story goes, a small community called Long Island in Tennessee was already sipping on what many believe was the earliest ancestor of the Long Island Iced Tea.
According to local lore, a man known simply as “Old Man Bishop” mixed a potent blend of spirits during the Prohibition era, inadvertently creating one of the world’s best-known cocktails.
This early version had in it some whiskey, maple syrup, and a selection of liquors mixed in varying quantities, no triple sec and no Coke. Bishop’s son, Ransom, was said to have given it a makeover by introducing lemon, lime, and Coke.
Then there’s the 1972 version, in which bartender Rosebud (real name Robert) Butt was said to have invented the cocktail on Long Island, New York.
His recipe, combining vodka, gin, rum, tequila and triple sec with a dash of cola, became the version most bartenders recognise today.
There are many iterations of the drink served around the world today. Santi’s in Sunnighill, owned by legendary restaurateur Joe Meldo, shared their version of the cocktail royalty.
Long Island Iced Tea
Ingredients
- 25ml Cactus Jack tequila sours
- 25ml Bacardi White Rum
- 25ml Gordon’s Gin
- 25ml Vodka
- 25ml Triple Sec
- 60ml orange juice
- Cola, to top up
- Orange slice, for garnish
Method
- Fill a tall glass with ice.
- Pour in the Cactus Jack, white rum, gin, vodka and triple sec.
- Add the orange juice and stir gently.
- Top up with cola.
- Garnish with an orange slice and serve.
