Classic Cocktail: Long Island Ice Tea

This article is from Putney Farm.com the best food and drink site on the web

Well, “when in Rome…” And in this case, “when in Long Island….make Long Island Iced Tea”.

While this cocktail is much tastier than you might think, there is no tea in this drink, and there is nothing “long” about it. “Long” drinks usually denote cocktails that are less boozy and often served in higher volumes, like a Pimms Cup or Dark n Stormy (a Diablo is also a good long drink). Long drinks often make for good summer cocktails, as you can sip them over a lazy afternoon. But with the Long Island Iced Tea, you can sip one over a full afternoon and still feel like you had a Three-Martini lunch…umm… make that a four-martini lunch.

Many ingredients, but most are easy to find or are in your bar right now.

The trick with the Long Island Iced Tea (Latin translation: needus designus driverus) is that most recipes suggest anywhere from four to seven ounces of high-proof spirits per drink (most cocktails have two ounces)- but you really don’t taste the booze. The Long Island Iced Tea tastes good (very good if you tweak the recipe), and goes down way to easy for its own (and your own) good.

Most recipes suggest an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half each of gin, vodka, tequila, rum and triple sec, with some lemon, simple syrup and a splash of coke. We include that recipe below, but it is a bit sweet for most. And while it tastes good, most of the attraction is of the “I can’t believe this drink is smooth with so much booze” category. Our version lightens the drink somewhat (not much) but omits the triple sec and adds more lemon and coke. Usually we don’t mess with original recipes without changing the name of the cocktail. But there are literally dozens of variations on the Long Island Iced Tea (see here, if curious), so whats one more version of the recipe?

 

Long Island Iced Tea and ingredients.

As for the spirits used in the recipe, there is no need for anything special. Decent, inexpensive rum, gin, tequila and vodka will do fine. The real alchemy of the drink is how the spirits mesh, if you add something too good, or aged, it won’t help and may actually harm the drink- and why waste the money? If you do want the best result, fresh lemon juice and simple syrup will work better, but sour mix will work in a pinch. All recipes suggest Coke, and that’s what we use, but any decent cola should be fine. And serve with lots of ice, the dilution helps the drink, and softens the booze (a tiny bit). And in the end, you have a very tasty drink that is a good summer sip. Think rum and coke, but with more tartness, depth and complexity. Just be careful if you have more than one.

 As for the history of this drink, there are simply too many stories to know where it came from. TGI Fridays claims they invented it (doubtful), but bars from Long Island to Tennessee also claim to be the creators. And to make matters worse, the timeframe varies anywhere from the 1920′s to 1970′s. But since neither tequila or vodka were common in the states until the 1950′s, we suspect the Long Island Iced Tea is a more recent creation. But perhaps fittingly, after a few of these cocktails, no one would remember anyway…

The Long Island Iced Tea: (Our version)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 oz. white rum
• 3/4 oz. blanco tequila
• 3/4 oz. dry gin
• 3/4 oz. vodka
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• 1/4 oz. simple syrup
• 2-3 oz. cola
• Lemon wheel, for garnish

Assemble:

1. Combine the spirits, lemon juice and simple syrup in a highball or Collins glass with lots of ice. Mix and then top with the cola. Add the lemon wedge and serve.

Long Island Iced Tea: (Classic version)

Ingredients:

• 1 oz. white rum
• 1 oz. blanco tequila
• 1 oz. dry gin
• 1 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. triple sec
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 3/4 oz. simple syrup
• Splash of cola
• Lemon wheel, for garnish

Assemble:

1. Combine the spirits, lemon juice and simple syrup in a highball or Collins glass with lots of ice. Mix and then top with the cola. Add the lemon wedge and serve.

Tiki Drinks: The Fog Cutter

The Fogcutter

from seriouseats.com

Some drinks just beg to be reborn. Jotted in aging bar manuals and cookbooks, they slumber for years, maybe trotted out for the occasional “Whatever Happened To…?” experience before slipping back into relative obscurity. Then, for whatever reason, someone starts paying attention to what the drink has to say, and it’s like talking to your grandparents and really understanding them for the first time—something clicks, the beauty becomes apparent, and before you know it, the drink is everywhere.

While it might be pushing the matter to say the Fog Cutter was obscure—tiki fiends have been batching them up for years—it’s certainly enjoying a new popularity. Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron first put this drink together decades ago, but now Martin Cate, owner of Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge in Alameda, California is giving it new life. Cate listed this drink as his selection for Food & Wine Cocktails 2008, and is such a fan that he’s even registered the drink’s name on his car’s license plate.

A couple of the Bay Area’s best food & drink bloggers have recently lauded the Fog Cutter, and with good reason: it’s a delicate, fruity blend of several spirits and juices, topped with an aromatic float of amontillado sherry. Be forewarned, though, it does pack a punch. As Vic wrote of his creation, “Fog Cutter, hell. After two of these, you won’t even see the stuff.”

About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces fresh orange juice
• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce orgeat (almond syrup)
• 1 1/2 ounces white rum
• 1/2 ounce gin
• 1/2 ounce brandy
• 1/2 ounce Amontillado sherry

Procedur

Add everything except sherry to a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well and strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Carefully pour the sherry on top of the drink; garnish with a sprig of mint.

Classic Cocktails: Hemingway’s Papa Doble

In 1932 the American novelist fished swordfish on board the “Anita” on the open sea of the north coast of Cuba. The same year, he settled at Ambos Mundos hotel on number 153 of Obispo Street. He enjoyed the most beautiful view of the city and the bay.

 This place, bathed in the breeze from the sea, was ideal for writing. He began the final version of his work, “For Whom the Bells Toll”, two hundred meters from this bar which was to become one of the most famous in the world, largely thanks to the ritual and almost daily presence, at its bar, of the future Nobel Prize. During all of this period, and until the end of his life, Hemingway resided in Havana. It’s at this time that he discovered the Floridita and its Daïquiri. 

One morning, Hemingway was walking in Obispo Street, one of the busiest streets in Havana, where both the Floridita and the Ambos Mundos Hotel are located. Coming to the corner of Obispo and Monserrate Streets, he couldn’t resist the charm of the Floridita, which called him with its munificent bar of precious hard wood. The open doors invited him to come in.

 Antonio Meilán (The cousin of the wife of Constante, the creator of the Daïquiri Floridita) says that Hemingway came into the bar to go to the toilet. When he came out, the drinks that everyone was drinking attracted him. He tasted one and said: “That’s good but I prefer it without sugar and double rum”. So, Constante prepared it to his taste and served it to him saying. “There it is Papa”. That’s how the cocktail, which was named after him – the Papa Hemingway – was born. Later grapefruit juice was added and that gave the “Hemingway Special”. Some people preferred it even to cocktails like the Daïquiri or the Mojito.

From that day, he did neither wish or was able to separate himself from the Floridita and its Daïquiri. He came every morning about ten o’clock. He settled on his stand, number one, at the corner of the bar. He asked his driver to buy the newspaper at the Plaza Hotel at hundred meters from the Floridita.

 The Floridita became also an experience that he offered to his friends who passed in the island. He brought, among others, the Duke of Windsor, Gene Tunney, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gary Cooper, Luis Miguel Dominguin, Ava Gardner, Tennessee Williams, Spencer Tracy.

 Today, in the Floridita, on the wall, above his favourite place, there is the bronze bust inaugurated in 1954 for his Nobel Prize of literature. His seat, protected by a chain, remains forever unoccupied.

 Hemingway Daiquirí, Papa Doble, Wild Daiquirí, Daiquirí Special

The following recipe is based upon the Daiquirí recipe from El Floridita that Hemingway drinks with A. E. Hotchner in his book Papa Hemingway.

 1 serving

2 1/1 jiggers Bacardi or Havana Club rum
(1 jigger = 1 1/2 ounces)
Juice of 2 limes
Juice of 1/2 grapefruit
6 drops of maraschino (cherry brandy)

Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino.
Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored. ( See Islands in the Stream, page 281 for a more Hemingway-esque description.)

Serve immediately in large, conical goblets.

Excerpted from The Hemingway Cookbook by Craig Boreth (c) Craig Boreth 1998. Used with permission of Craig Boreth