LONG ISLAND ICED TEA

Honey, someday when you're a little older, you will be introduced to something that is extremely seductive but fickle. A fair-weather friend who seems benign but packs a wallop like a donkey kick, and that is the Long Island Iced Tea. The Long Island Iced Tea makes you do things that you normally wouldn't do, like lifting your skirt in public or calling someone you normally wouldn't call at weird times

- Lorelei, the Gilmore Girls

My first encounter with LIITs came in 1991. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Spontaneous Combustion had just closed A Little Night Music, and the cast and crew were enjoying post-show revelry at Aziz Mulay-Shah’s. His parents had a posh house in Westmount that could comfortably accommodate several dozen drunken kids and various quazi-responsible adults. Aziz, who is a year older than me and who today is a diplomat living in Dubai, was already aspiring to a metrosexual lifestyle, and could always be counted on to introduce us to the finer things in life as he then understood them (On New Year’s Eve 1995, he cooked Tandoori Chicken for 25 at a sit-down banquet at Phil’s decaying upper Westmount mansion, which by midnight’s knell had devolved into a Bacchic bender. I lost a pair of boots and a fair amount of my dignity at that party). He asked my mother if she had ever had a LIIT. My mom, who was and is not a drinker (save for the occasional Harvey Wallbanger and the ever-present quickly-emptied bottle of Bailey’s when we went camping) said that she loved iced tea but had yet to try the Long Island variety. By all accounts (including hers), she loved them, since she had at least 3 of them. I don't remember much of the rest of the night.

The LIIT has become my mixed drink of choice, at least when someone else is buying.  Oddly enough, I only drank them sporadically until the summer of 2008, when I was sailing in the Mediterranean. I was in the disco on the Zuiderdam, and Dom and Chris ordered me one.  Yummy! And they have more alcohol than you realize at first. I would often judge the passenger Karaoke contest, an ersatz American Idol, if you will. I played the Simon Cowell-type. The judges would get free drinks, and the bartenders would replace it as soon as one was finished.  The more I drank, the meaner and funnier I got. The best LIIT-induced line I said was “That was so bad, it gave me cancer!”  I’m not quite so funny when drunk on beer.

Here’s the recipe. L’Chaim!