OK, I’m not here to judge. If you really want a Long Island Iced Tea, go for it. I’m not gonna try and stop you. I just think there are a couple things you should know before you go ahead and order one. For those who don’t know what a Long Island Iced Tea is, it’s a drink consisting of pretty much every type of light liquor on the rail — so that’s gin, tequila, rum, and vodka, with a little coke and lemon juice for good measure. In my humble opinion, it doesn’t taste good, nor is it supposed to. It’s more akin to the product of raiding your parent’s liquor cabinet as a teenager and pouring everything you can into a water bottle than it is a cocktail.
But, like I said, if you’re gonna order one, here are some things you can expect.
Stage One: Congratulations, you’ve just turned 21! Or, you’ve just gotten your first fake ID and hopefully it’s a good one, because your bartender is probably going to look at it a moment longer than he would have if you had ordered something else.
Stage Two: You take a sip. It doesn’t taste good. But like I said, it really only has one job, and that is to get you drunk fast. After about half of the drink is gone, it starts tasting better somehow. Everything is going really well.
Stage Three: You get another. At this point, there is no turning back. You are that person — a Long Island Iced Tea person. Your shame, if you ever had any, is gone. Now, you can hardly taste anything, you’re just sucking ‘em down.
Stage Four: The second half of your second drink stays full for a long, long time. Your friends keep telling you to be quiet, even though you are sure you’re talking at a PERFECTLY NORMAL NOISE LEVEL. You tell your friends you are not drunk, to which they point out that you must be, because you are not drinking your drink. This brings us to…
Stage Five: You finish your drink out of spite. Your friends have left the bar. You didn’t even realize they had left, they’re just gone. The bartender gives you a glass of water, and then tells you to go home.
Stage Six: You don’t listen to the bartender. You stay, and make friends with the crazy guy who yells at people from outside of the restaurant. Hey, he seems nice…right?
Stage Seven: You wake up the next morning, in your bed. Hopefully. You also hope you still have your job and your significant other, so you look for your phone, but it’s gone (either in the Uber from last night or gone forever; there is no in between). You look at the clock: it’s noon and it’s a Wednesday. Whoops. Better luck next time. Not that there will be a next time, because after this hangover, you’ll never want to drink a Long Island Iced Tea ever again.
And that’s OK.
