The Boozy Ingredients Youll Need
With so many variations, its no surprise that youll be able to mix and match and find a whole lotta variation out there. While this raspberry version isnt 100% an authentic LIIT , its very similar.
Heres what goes into this easy cocktail :
- Raspberry Simple Syrup: make it ahead of time and you can make a long island iced tea whenever the craving strikes! This is where this drink gets both its raspberry flavor and its hint of sweetness.
- Vodka: any vodka youd make a mixed drink with can be used.
- Rum: use a white or light rum.
- Gin: again, use a gin that you would enjoy in a mixed drink. Gin can be quite pine-forward, so keep this in mind and use a more neutral brand if you dont love gin. Lets be real though, they all kind of blend together anyway!
- Tequila: use silver or Blanco tequila in this drink for best results. Were also using a little less tequila than the other liquors because otherwise, it can be overpowering in the cocktail.
- Fresh Lemon Juice: in place of sweet and sour mix, were using fresh lemon juice. I highly recommend squeezing your own from a lemon for the best flavor.
- Cointreau Orange Liqueur: or substitute triple sec tested both with and without, the winner included this orange liqueur, however, it was a close decision. So in that case, feel free to omit it if needed.
- Black Iced Tea: refreshing, light, and perfect for summer, a splash of iced tea rounds out this cocktail.
Long Island Iced Tea Directions
Step 1:
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, and sour mix over ice. Cover and shake hard.
Step 2:
Pour the mixture, including ice, into a Collins or hurricane glass. Add more ice, if desired, then top off with cola. Stir well to combine.
Step 3:
Garnish with a lemon slice. Serve with a straw and enjoy!
Who Invented The Long Island Iced Tea
The city of Kingsport, Tennessee, has claimed it as their own, with tourism officials stating it was created by moonshine distiller Charlie Old Man Bishop during the Prohibition era and named after a nearby island in the Holston River. This original version was said to include modern staples like vodka, gin, rum and tequila, but also included whiskey and maple syrup.
However, in an escalation of local tourism board public relations wars, New Yorks Long Island disputed this account, claiming the drink was created much later in the 1970s by Robert Rosebud Butt, then a bartender at Jones Beachs now-defunct Oak Beach Inn. That version hews closer to the Long Island Iced Tea made worldwide today. It includes triple sec and cola while omitting brown spirits.
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Can You Premix Long Island Iced Tea
Barton Long Island Iced Tea Ready To Drink Kentucky- Made with a blend of Rum, Tequila, Vodka, Gin, Triple Sec orange liqueur, and caramel color. It is premixed and ready to drink, offering a simple, expedient and consistent Long Island Iced Tea cocktail every time.
How many liquors are in Long Island Iced Tea?
5Long Island Iced Tea made with 5 types of liquor, sweet & sour, and a splash of cola gives this cocktail its deceptive look and name.
What Kind Of Glass Should I Use
Its best to serve a long island iced tea in a highball glass that is around 8 ounces. A tumbler glass like a Collins glass is tall and skinny, making it perfect for serving a long island because you can fill it with ice, and visually, the strong cocktail appears to have a lot of volume.
Whichever glass type you choose, it should be filled with ice and then topped off with the cocktail.
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Long Island Iced Tea Ingredients
The Long Island Iced Tea is a highball cocktail made with 5 liquors: vodka, tequila, rum, gin and orange liqueur. Mixed together with cola, the drink has a brown color like iced tea . The modern version of this cocktail was most likely invented in 1972 by a bartender in Long Island, New York: hence the name.
The LIIT took off and became so popular that it made the list of the International Bartender Associations IBA official cocktails, earning it an official definition. The Long Island Iced Tea ingredients are:
What Is A Long Island Iced Tea
The Long Island is a highball cocktail, a hefty concoction consisting of not two, not three, but four different spirits. If mixing vodka, tequila, gin and rum makes you wary, youll be pleasantly surprised to know that the Long Island is, in truth, pretty good. The addition of sour mix, Triple Sec and cola takes the bite out of the booziness. The best part is that its as easy to make as it is to drink.
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Strain Dilute And Chill
Remove the tea bags or strain out the loose-leaf tea. If youre adding sweetener, stir it into the hot tea before diluting the concentrated tea mixture with the remaining water. Refrigerate until chilled.
Editors tip: If you dont want to fuss with temperatures, Instant Pot iced tea is a good shortcut route to take. Simply add tea bags to the Instant Pot, fill with water and pressure cook on high for four minutes. Remove the tea bags and enjoy.
Variations On The Classic
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Why This Drink Is So Popular
This drink is famous, no doubt about it.
You do have to be careful when enjoying a Long Island Iced Tea because the alcohol content is quite a bit higher than most highball drinks. So be sure to enjoy them responsibly. But that is why this drink is so popular, because you can feel it pretty quickly.
This popular drink is made by combining vodka, tequila, rum, gin, and triple sec, then mixing those with sweet and sour mix. Everything is topped off with cola and served in a tall glass over ice. It looks like iced tea, but its not.
World’s Best Long Island Iced Tea Recipe 2023
- American Drinks
With a prep time of just 10 minutes you’ll enjoy the world’s best Long Island Iced Tea recipe at home.
Arrange the 8 ingredients from the list below on your kitchen countertop and follow the next 3 steps to learn how to make the best rated Long Island Iced Tea recipe among the chefs of the best restaurants in the world!
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The Best Long Island Iced Tea Recipe Ever
The world’s best Long Island Iced Tea recipe are one of the quickest and easiest cocktails to make.
And while the name of this classic cocktail is misleading, very few actually liken the taste to a real iced tea.
Make sure you sip these babies slowly, they sure do pack a punch!
The tasty Long Island Iced Tea recipe is likely the strongest one you can mix up.
There is no iced tea anywhere in the Long Island Iced Tea. It is simply the color of iced tea.
Made with tequila, rum, vodka, gin, and triple sec. Served in a pitcher, this is the ultimate party cocktail.
The perfect Long Island Iced Tea recipe reads more like a frat house hazing than one of the worlds most popular cocktails.
Servings: 1 People
Skill Level: Easy
Whatever your view of the Long Island Iced Tea is, it is a popular drink and one that every bartender should know.
The best Long Island Iced Tea recipe is one of our favorite guilty pleasures!
Whats The Best Way To Make Long Island Iced Tea
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice pour in vodka, tequila, rum, gin, Cointreau, and sweet and sour mix. Cover and shake until the outside of the shaker is frosty. Place a few cubes of ice into a highball glass, and strain in the iced tea. Top with the cola, and garnish with a wedge of lime.
What kind of spirits are in Long Island iced tea?
The spirits in this drink include equal parts of vodka, tequila, light rum, gin, and triple sec. You will also need sweet and sour mix or equal amounts of lemon juice and simple syrup. Cola is used to top it all off, and a lemon is added for garnish, part of the iced tea appearance.
How big of a pitcher for Long Island iced tea?
To make a 2-quart pitcher, adjust the ingredients to: 6-ounces for each alcohol, 12-ounces of sweet and sour mix, and 16-ounces of cola . Be careful when enjoying a Long Island Iced Tea because the alcohol content is quite a bit higher than most highball drinks.
How to make Mrs Baxtons Long Island iced tea?
Cover and shake until the outside of the shaker is frosty. Place a few cubes of ice into a highball glass, and strain in the iced tea. Top with the cola, and garnish with a wedge of lime. 691 calories protein 0g carbohydrates 78.7g fat 0.1g cholesterol 0mg sodium 5.7mg.
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Prep And Combine The Ingredients
Although Long Island Iced Teas made in bars often include bottled sour mix, here fresh lemon juice takes the place of this. Slice and squeeze a lemon and measure out 2 tablespoons . You can also cut a few slices of lemon to use as a garnish.
Measure out all of the different alcohols and add them to a cocktail shaker . You won’t need a jigger to do this since, as it just so happens, ½ ounce = 1 tablespoon. Add the honey and lemon juice, as well. Stir these ingredients to combine, then add a few ice cubes.
Classic Long Island Iced Tea
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Can I Make This Less Strong
This is the classic way to make a Long Island iced tea and its definitely quite strong. Even if you measure everything exactly vs being a bit generous, youll still end up with 2 1/2 ounces of liquor in your drink. Thats the equivalent of a few beers. If you want a drink thats not quite as strong, I suggest adding double or triple the amount of sweet and sour mix and Coca Cola.
What Are Long Island Iced Teas Made Of
Shake the vodka, gin, rum, tequila, Triple Sec, and lemon juice until all of the ingredients are well chilled. Shake vigorously to combine and chill as needed. Ice, cola, and all the other ingredients can be poured into two glasses or beer mugs and topped with the drink. Adding lemon wedges to the cocktail will add a splash of color.
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What Can I Substitute For Tequila In A Long Island Iced Tea
For Long Beach iced tea, the cola is replaced by cranberry juice, but everything else is still present. The Miami iced tea is made with peach schnapps instead of tequila, and the soda of choice is lemon-lime.
If youre looking for a less harsh alcohol in your favorite recipes, rum is an excellent choice. If you do not like rum, you can substitute cachaca, a Brazilian alcohol made from sugar cane juice. Agave is a plant in Mexico that is used in tequila cocktails such as margaritas. There is a slight sweet taste to this tea, which hints of citrus and floral notes. Simply substitute tequila for vodka in pasta sauce, and swap out the vodka for an equal amount of tequila. Choosing an alcohol to replace tequila should be based on the flavor profile youre looking for. The flavor of rum is strong and alcoholic, making it a good substitute for tequila.
Does Dark Or Light Liquor Get You More Drunk
In it, participants drank equal amounts of alcohol in either vodka or bourbon forms. Thirty three percent of the bourbon drinkers reported next-day pain while only three percent of vodka drinkers had hangovers. “One can clearly see,” Dr. Nguyen says, “that the darker liquor had more of an impact than the light.”
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Raspberry Long Island Iced Tea
This easy10-minute Raspberry Long Island Iced Tea is festive, boozy, and refreshing! Its made with real iced tea, without the cola, and freshly squeezed lemon juice the perfect summertime happy hour cocktail!
Whats sweet yet tart and boozy yet so sippable and basically a must for summertime cocktails with friends?! Its a Homemade Raspberry Long Island Iced Tea, of course.
This drink takes the cake when it comes to enjoying fruity, refreshing cocktails when the heat rises, although as you might know, long island iced teas are infamous for being boozy. Easy to drink, and easy towell, go to your head. So drinkers be warned, this is one you want to sip slowly across an afternoon.
So you might know that LIITs are boozy, but did you know that long island iced tea cocktails actually dont have iced tea as an ingredient?!
I was this many years old when I first acquired this knowledge. And because Im much more of a fan of iced tea than cola, and 10/10 its already in my fridge in the summer as opposed to the soda, I knew my fruity version of this drink was, in fact, going to have iced tea.
Can I Make Long Islands For A Crowd
Yes! To make Long Islands for the whole group, first break out a pitcher or large punch bowl. Youll need the same ingredients and will want to follow the same steps. Just multiply each ingredient by the number of drinks you plan to make. For 10 Long Islands, youll need 10 ounces of vodka, and so on. Cheers to summer!
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How To Make A Raspberry Long Island Iced Tea
Ah, this cocktail is really as simple as mixing together the ingredients. Because were using fresh lemon juice, a shaker helps to combine all the liquids and the shake with the ice helps to chill the cocktail while mellowing out all the booze just a touch. Shaking it makes sure the cocktail is consistent throughout each and every sip!
Add the liquors to a shaker filled with ice. Continue pouring in all of the ingredients except for the iced tea.Shake it up, noting that you dont want to shake too vigorously or the ice may chip and water down your drink further.
Strain the drink into a glass filled with ice, top off with iced tea, give it a little stir with a straw, and start sipping!
Garnish with fresh mint leaves, lemon wedge, or fresh raspberries as desired.