Long Island Iced Tea
Five white spirits, lemon, sugar and a splash of cola. It tastes like iced tea and drinks like three cocktails — which is the whole point and the whole problem.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Fill a tall glass with ice.
Add the five spirits, the lemon juice and the syrup to a shaker, fill with ice, and shake briefly.
Strain into the glass over the fresh ice.
Top with a splash of cola — just enough to tint it — stir once, and garnish with a lemon wedge.
A thoughtful finish
- Measure the spirits. Half an ounce each is the recipe; a 'free pour of everything' is how this drink earned its reputation.
- Fresh lemon and real syrup make it a drink rather than a dare. Sour mix is where most versions go wrong.
- The cola is a splash, not a mixer. It is there to make the drink look like tea, not to sweeten it.
Common mistakes
- Treating it as a cola highball. More than an ounce of cola and it becomes a sweet, flat mess.
- Building it with the bottom shelf. Five cheap spirits add up to a very unpleasant drink.
- Forgetting that it contains about two and a half ounces of spirit. One is a cocktail; three is an evening.
A few good questions.
Is there any tea in it?
No. The name comes from the colour and the glass. It is five spirits, lemon, sugar and a splash of cola.
How strong is it?
Around two and a half ounces of spirit per drink, which is the equivalent of two standard cocktails. Treat it accordingly.
What are the variations?
The Long Beach swaps cranberry for cola, the Tokyo Tea uses melon liqueur, the Adios Motherfucker uses blue curaçao and lemon-lime soda. They are all the same idea in a different colour.
Can I leave a spirit out?
Yes. Four of the five is fine; the triple sec and lemon are what hold it together. Nobody will notice the missing gin.
Variations
- Adios Motherfucker — Blue curaçao and lemon-lime soda in place of triple sec and cola.
- Long Beach Iced Tea — Cranberry juice in place of cola.
- Tokyo Tea — Melon liqueur in place of triple sec.
- Tom Collins — Gin, lemon, sugar and soda — the civilised ancestor.
Where it comes from
1972 · Long Island, New York · Robert 'Rosebud' Butt · Oak Beach Inn
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
Robert Butt, a bartender at the Oak Beach Inn on Long Island, has said he invented the drink in 1972 for a contest sponsored by a triple sec brand, and the Oak Beach Inn’s version — five spirits, a little sour, a splash of cola — is the one that spread. A rival claim places an ‘Old Man Bishop’ in Kingsport, Tennessee, in the 1920s, making a whiskey-and-maple-syrup drink near a community called Long Island; the link to the modern cocktail is thin. Whatever its birth, it was the defining drink of the 1980s chain restaurant and remains the most alcoholic thing on most menus.
Sources
- Robert Butt, Oak Beach Inn history, 2010 (interview)
- Robert Simonson, A Proper Drink, 2016 (book)
- David Wondrich, Imbibe!, 2015 (book)
Strength. About 1.7 US standard drinks at an estimated 18.7% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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