Iced-T
It's National Ice Tea Day on June 10th. As a child iced tea was a powder mix or something in a can. As a teenager I worked at a Golf Course and I heard of Long Island Ice-T. Somehow I just that it was a little sweeter than the Country Time Iced tea. I saw the golfers drink it every day and they looked pretty happy when they drank long island Ice-T.
Finally I was in my first year of college on a road trip and we stopped at a restaurant to order drinks. I didn't want to drink a lot of alcohol so I looked at the menu and found a nice ice tea. It looked exactly like the country time ice tea I grew up with and it basically tasted like old fashion ice tea. To me it tasted like ice tea spiked with rum but there was a lot more. Long Island Ice-T is part run, vodka, tequila, gin and syrup and then topped off with cola and lemon. The cola gives it the ice tea color and the sugar syrup and lemon gives it the flavor to taste like ice tea. I wasn't sure if the buzz came from the alcohol or the brain freeze.
New Jersey Ice-T may look the same but has got quite a different kick. It's also known as a "shit mix". A Jersey ice tea contains Jägermeister, Jack Daniels and Vodka topped off with coke and a little lemon and cranberry juice. Jersey ice tea comes from a totally different place than Long Island ice tea.
The Long Island ice tea probably came from a quaint Beach Inn on Long Island in the 1970s or maybe from Tennessee in the 1920s. There is an argument about that. https://abcnews.go.com/US/tennessee-york-feud-long-island-iced-teas-origin/story?id=55070206
The Jersey Iced Tea probably came from the morning after Pete Davidson's party when someone mixed whatever was left over in the half empty bottles.
It's hard to sip any ice tea without thinking of Ice-T the Jersey Rapper. His music is Old School to the T.
I remember hearing this in middle school and thinking it was dope. It still is.
Ice T - Dog'N The Wax (1986)
Ice T may seem tough but he is really sweet. He has married once and stayed with his wife Coco for twenty years. They still live in New Jersey with their daughter. He is a Rapper with a deep sense of humanity.
One of my favorite is OG. This one came out around the same time I had my first drink of Long Island Ice-T.
O.G. Original Gangster
Thirty-seven killed
Last week in a crack war
Hostges tied up
And shot in a liquor store
Nobody gives a fuck
"The children have to go to school."
Well, moms, good luck
Cause the shit's fucked up bad
I use my pad and pen
And my lyrics break out mad
I try to write about fun
and the good times
But the pen yanks away and explodes
And destroys the rhyme
Maybe it's just cause of where I'm from
L.A. that was a shot gun!
The story is true and he was living in LA at the time. It was 1990 when he wrote and he could sense the tension. A year later the riots broke out in LA. My guess is Ice-T the hard core heavy metal rapper is actually has a deep sense of compassion.
I live in Utah. The state used to have a silly rule that drinks had to be made from mini bottles. The mixologist had to use full mini-bottles for each drink.
A Long Island Ice Tea has four or five different liquors. That meant they had to put four or five mini-bottles to match the recipe.
The state regulated the price of drinks as well. That meant that a Long Island Ice Tea, with four shots of liquor, cost about the same as a regular drink with one shot.
When I was in school, people would order long island ice tea because it was like buying four drinks for the price of one. What a great deal!?
Unfortunately the deal led to many people drinking more than they could handle.
The state ended up getting rid of its mini-bottle law as a result of the trend. The state's attempts to regulate bars led to bars that served drinks that were stronger than normal.
Anyway, I found myself facing down Long Island Ice Teas on more than one occasion. Although it wasn't a good idea, It was the best deal.
Thanks for the interesting comment @yintercept.
It seems like we all pay the price for these drinks at some time. I'm not sure why the mini bottle law was in effect maybe to maintain purity but it doesn't really make sense. Anyway this ice tea is not the same as country time. Even my 17 year old self knows that.
The logic behind the mini-bottle law was that state regulators didn't want bars selling liquor directly to the public. The idea was that customers would buy minibottles directly from the state. Bartenders would then pour the liquor into a glass for the customer. Bartenders would sell the liquor at a fixed cost and add a fixed fee for service.
This is the type of idea produced by the regulatory mindset. The mini-bottles were simply a way for a state to impose control.
The laws were extremely wasteful. They reduced competition and they made drinks stronger.
Regulators have strange ways of thinking and tend to make problems worse.
Anyway, I think it was the Long Island Ice-Tea that broke the mini bottle law. It is a drink forced a state to change its regulations.
That's amazing. It's almost like there was a state liquor store that said, "buy from us or else!" It's cool to know that the Long Island Iced Tea broke the regulation system. That's one step closer to becoming a working system.
The liquor stores in Utah are owned by the state. Bars have to buy through the state monopoly and are still highly regulated.
It is funny: Utah bills itself on being the most "conservative" state in the union.
Utah Conservatives love to impose their authority through state control and local monopolies.
I cannot buy wine online in Utah. I cannot join a wine of the month club or order wine from my favorite vineyard. I have to place a request through the state store.
If I buy wine from a vineyard, I am supposed to register it with the state before driving into Utah.
I am not even sure if I am able to legally give out WINE tokens:
!wine
This is fascinating. These guys will catch up to you pretty fast when those laws were in place.
Isn't there also some weird law about New Jersey residents not being able to pump your own gas?