Long Island Iced Tea
 

I did a couple searches and did not find a thread for this, so here goes:

After ordering Long Island Iced Teas at restaurants and enjoying them greatly, I decided to try to make this beverage for enjoyment in my own home. I searched the web and came up with a billion recipes (ok, it was only a couple hundred) and they all followed this same basic principle:

1 part Vodka
1 part Gin
1 part Rum
1 part Tequila
1 part Triple Sec
1.5-2 parts Sweet and Sour
Splash of Coke

Now having gone to the liquor store and stocked my bar I attempted to make this drink and came up with the following reaction: "What the hell is this? It's nothing like Iced Tea!"

So here I am asking the question: How do YOU make a Long Island Iced Tea?
I will be checking back here in the near future, assuming I am still sober enough to tell which keyboard is the real one.

Whoa big fella. Drinks you buy in a bar all have about one (or two, maybe, depending on the bar) shots of alcohol in them, making them as strong or a little stronger than a beer. Your concoction is 5/7th's liquor. Dial the sweet and sour WAY up and the liqour WAY back and you might get something you are more familiar with.

Edit: found a recipe you'll probably be happier with:

So, in 'parts' terms, if you were following your recipe, that would be SIX (6) parts sweet and sour...not 2.

I think I had the misfortune of following a recipe near yours MageB420666, I feel your pain. Well actually.. if you drank that you are probably not feeling much at all. I will have to give your recipe a try sometime twistedmosaic.

You can pretty much do the math...a normal bar drink is never more than 1/4 spirits, so if you're mixing something up that is, yer doin' it wrong!

If you're making it at home, all bets are off...I've been known to drink a few 1:1 Jack and Coke's in my day, although even that is weak compared to some, but you'll never get one in a bar unless you order the shots and coke and highball glass seperately, and then it will be $16.

Bonus face: Since you've already got all the hard stuff, you should try a Long Beach Ice Tea--same as a long island, with cranberry juice instead of sweet and sour, and citrus soda (7up/sprite) instead of coke. Same ratios, and if you like it, all good bartenders already know what it is, so you can order it at bars.

Full disclosure: The '6 parts sour' is actually a considerably watered down Long Island, as it is traditionally just a hella strong highball...(it's about 60 proof when made by the recipe you gave)...the only reason I gave you the wimpier recipe is that if you made the 'real' version and didn't like it, and due to your preamble about liking it at restaurants, I assumed you wanted to know how to mix the bar version.

The whole "parts" thing is kind of confusing when making drinks, because as the recipes get passed around, oz. and shots often get changed or substituted with parts and then everything gets messed up.

In my opinion, a long island iced tea should only ever include gin, vodka, rum and triple sec as alcohols. Tequila has no place in them, and I object to its use, as that's a different drink entirely. The coke is there purely for color. You shouldn't be trying to put in enough to make the taste any different.

The recipe I use is:

1 highball glass, full of ice
.5 oz each of vodka, rum, gin, triple sec
fill with sweet and sour
top with coke
stir
garnish with a flag or lemon, as you prefer

Flag=lemon or orange slice with a lemon, in case that's too much of a bar term.

Unfortunately, the long island is a drink that's been abused and messed with without changing the name, so what you had and liked a lot in the bar may have nothing to do with the recipe I just gave. The most common substitution/addition is tequila either with or for triple sec, so try that if the straight version isn't working for you.

One note to add--some bars don't mix their Long Islands with all of the different liquors from scratch; rather, they use a Long Island mix, like this one:

http://homebarsupplys.com/blog/images/desert_island.jpg

Mix this with sour mix and cola, and voila.

agreed. lots of sweet and sour and just a little coke/pepsi for that dark color to spread around.

but, re: the jack and coke.... I always just ordered a shot of jack, with a coke back. It's always just whatever the price of one drink is.

I'm a bastard when it comes to this particular drink because my LIIT is completely different than anything you've ever had. The Willravel Iced Tea:

First, I brew up some iced tea (GASP!). Yeah, that's right. Normally, I like to use a decent black tea, but anything that doesn't have too distinct a flavor is fine. Anyway, let it cool overnight so it doesn't cloud and you keep the best flavor, and then refrigerate. Then comes the gin. The amount of gin:tea is never the same, but I'd say about a 1:5 gin to tea ratio is okay. I serve it on the rocks with a twist in a highball glass.

I've been told this is also called a tree frog.

Yeah, a Long Island Iced Tea that is not, not even close. Not saying it's not a good drink, but it's not a long island iced tea, and calling it that is ridiculous...that would be like making a White Russian, except with Seagram's Seven instead of Vodka, and 7Up instead of milk, and no Kahlúa.

Calling it a Willravel Iced Tea is fine though!

I'll have a glass of WIT, with a twist of lemon!



I never really understood this drink. It's inventor never used tea. Go figure. I tried one once but found it too sweet.

A WIT, however, sounds delightful. I love unsweetened tea and gin. I'm normally a gin & tonic or gin martini kind of guy.

Your abbreviation has me confused. Where I come from, WIT is this:

http://www.oregontrailbrewery.com/images/27.gif

Wheat beer flavored with coriander seed and orange peel. Yum.

Dammit, snowy! :mad: I nearly ruined my Macbook from drooling!

And so you should! It's my favorite beer. Unfortunately, it's only available within my city limits. So make it out to Oregon some summer and I'll buy you one.

Hmm...I could travel the nearly 2,500 miles to your place, or I could go down the street and order this:

http://www.ratebeer.com/beerimages/62475.jpg


Apparently it has the orange/coriander things going on as well. I'm not sure if it's as good, but it's worth a try.

I should thank you; I think this beer is new. I saw some ads and thought, "What's that crap?" (My usual response to ads.)

Maybe now I'll give it a try. If not, I'm sure the market here in Toronto has another beer of the same composition, if not better quality.

/delicious threadjack

Oh, not quite the end, I'm afraid. I've tried a lot of other wits that had the orange/coriander thing going on...alas, they are not the same. Most are overly carbonated and/or filtered and that's where they go wrong. It's certainly worth a try, but I sincerely doubt (having tried and tried again to find a comparable beer myself) that it will beat my Oregon Trail Wit. But good luck, and the offer stands if you ever get out this way. Wits are exciting beers.

/threadjack :p

i'm a bartender. i'm my county, it's against the law to put more than 2 oz's of liq in a drink so we leave out the tequila. but imo, it taste better this way. i'm a huge tequila fan, but i think it taste better w/o.

.5 oz vodka
.5 oz rum
.5 oz gin
.5oz triple sec
3 oz sour mix
top w/coke

the brand of liq you use makes a big difference.

Personal experience, cut down on the Gin, it tends to overpower.

Yeah, I didn't buy cheap liquor when I stocked up to try this, cause I've tasted cheap, and then tasted top shelf..... I'm never drinking liquor again from a plastic bottle that costs roughly $5 for half a gallon.....

I had tried mixing the drink with more sweet n sour added in, but it just seemed to make the drink taste more lemony while still leaving a lot of the alcohol flavor (not necessarily bad, just not what I was trying for). I'll try leaving out the tequila on my next one and see how it turns out.

I've ordered a Jack neat with a Coke back many times, the only time I can remember being charged for more then one drink was on a cruise ship. I remember thinking WTF!

Did you try it with a LOT more...as in, six times as much sweet and sour as you have for each of your alcohols?

If so, you may want to try a different brand of sweet and sour.

Yep tried that and it seemed much closer to what I was looking for.... or I was just out of it enough that I could no longer taste the alcohol. Thanks for the advice!