![]() ![]() “Every time you make a Long Island, you put a splash of Coke on top but we flip it and float the lemonade on the Coke.” The Rhode Island Iced Tea at Shore Leave | Photo courtesy of Shore Leave “I liked the idea of flipping it on its head,” Moore says. The drink consists of frozen lemonade, gin, pisco, Jamaican rum, and curaçao, all mixed together and poured into a pearl diver glass atop a splash of cola. The idea to make a boozy frozen lemonade came first, but when pulling spirits from behind the bar that she thought would bring out the mouth-puckering citrus flavor of the lemonade, she had a motley crew of bottles that felt reminiscent of the myriad spirits used to make the Long Island version. Her version, the Rhode Island Iced Tea, is a nod to Del’s Lemonade, a must-have drink of the summer in the nearby New England state. Nostalgia is also at the heart of Boston’s popular tropical-style cocktail bar, Shore Leave, where beverage director Hannah Moore created a summer menu addition with memory-inducing frozen lemonade, a bunch of booze, and a splash of the cola that makes this drink instantly recognizable. Long Island Iced Tea at The Roosevelt Room | The Roosevelt Room There’s craft cocktail bar The Roosevelt Room in Austin, which has an entire category dedicated to popular drinks of the late 20th century, aka what it dubs the “Dark Ages.” The bar’s version of a Long Island includes maguey sap syrup, which imparts flavors of molasses and corn. These all stay a little closer to the original recipe, but at other bars around the country, beverage directors are taking the basics and running with it to craft drinks loosely inspired by the LIIT. And over the winter, Teddy’s Bar served a hot Long Island Iced Tea with black tea syrup in place of Coke that worked against all odds. Danny Meyer’s Southern-style bar, Porchlight, uses homemade cola, citrus, and bitters to elevate its draft interpretation of the drink. At Bonnie’s, a buzzy Cantonese restaurant that’s currently one of the toughest reservations to get in town, you’ll find an oversized vintage-style teapot filled with iced honey lemon tea, cognac, and Mexican Coca-Cola along with the requisite tequila, gin, vodka, and rum. ![]() In NYC, this once scoffed-at drink has been popping up on menus at other top-notch restaurants. “We wanted to change it so you can get to that level, but it’s also going to be a really tasty drink and you’re going to have a good journey on the way there.” “For the most part, is for people who are here to drink and think, ‘This is the fastest way to get to where I’m going,’” he says of the cocktail’s rowdy reputation. Robison knew he wanted to improve upon the now-classic combination of vodka, gin, rum, tequila, orange liqueur like Triple Sec or Cointreau, and cola to match the caliber of dishes coming out of the kitchen at Wenwen-and he’s one of several bartenders around the country trying to turn this long-derided drink reserved for college hooligans into a legitimate order. Sze has been enjoying this decidedly low-brow drink since his early days with alcohol and continued loving it into adulthood, so when he tapped Morgan Robison as the beverage director for his latest venture, Wenwen, having a Long Island Iced Tea on the menu was the only requirement. And if that sounds like a deranged college drinking game, well, that’s because it was. Sze has been known to indulge in a game he calls “The LIIT Challenge,” in which whoever is the last to finish their Long Island Iced Tea is forced to order another. But even he can occasionally be found saddled up to a bar not just drinking, but chugging, a drink that’s synonymous with hazy nights out: the Long Island Iced Tea. Eric Sze is a lauded chef and the owner of two wildly popular Tawinese restaurants in New York City. ![]()
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