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A Long Island Iced Tea is one of the most popular drinks in bars all around the world. While the name of the drink sounds like an easy breezy iced tea, it is not. Anyone who has tried this drink knows it's either going to give you the best time of your life or the worst hangover of your life. Long Island Iced Tea is a combination of almost 5 spirits: vodka, white rum, gin, triple sec, and tequila. Despite its name, the drink itself doesn't have any tea in it, but it's named so due to its brownish hue, which is similar to iced tea. That combination is exactly why the drink has earned its reputation as one of the stronger cocktails on a bar menu. The International Bartenders Association, or IBA, still lists it as an official cocktail.
The biggest reason for the Long Island Iced Tea's strength is pretty obvious once you look at the recipe. The IBA calls for 15ml each of vodka, tequila, white rum, gin and triple sec, giving the drink 75ml of spirits and liqueur before the non-alcoholic ingredients are added. It then gets 25ml lemon juice, 30ml simple syrup and cola to top.
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Most of the base spirits used in a Long Island are around 40% ABV. That means the drink is not relying on one particularly strong spirit. Instead, it puts several standard-strength spirits together in the same glass. This is where the cocktail can catch people out. A vodka soda might contain one measure of vodka. A gin and tonic usually has one main alcoholic ingredient too. A Long Island has several. The mixer doesn't dilute it as much as you might think
The Long Island Iced Tea is normally served in a highball glass packed with ice, but the volume of cola and citrus is relatively modest compared with the amount of alcohol. The IBA's recipe uses only enough cola to top the drink.
Other recipes also point out that the cocktail contains a notably high proportion of alcohol compared with its mixers. Its version uses 3/4 ounce each of vodka, rum, tequila, gin and triple sec, alongside lemon juice, simple syrup and cola. So although the drink can look like a tall, refreshing soft drink, there isn't actually a huge amount of non-alcoholic liquid standing between you and those five spirits.
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This is where things get slightly complicated because there is no single ABV for every Long Island Iced Tea. Bartenders use different quantities of spirits, different brands with different strengths and different amounts of cola and ice. As a result, one Long Island can be noticeably stronger than another.
The commonly quoted figure is around 22% ABV for a classic-style Long Island Iced Tea. LongIsland.com, which covers the cocktail's Long Island history, gives an approximate alcohol concentration of 22%.
That does not mean every Long Island served in a bar is exactly 22%. In fact, once you add more cola, lemon juice and dilution from ice, the final percentage in the glass can be considerably lower. What doesn't change is the amount of alcohol initially put into the drink. That's the number worth paying attention to.
This is probably the cleverest part of the cocktail. A Long Island Iced Tea isn't designed to taste like five separate shots thrown into a glass. Lemon juice brings acidity, simple syrup adds sweetness and cola contributes caramel, spice and bitterness. Triple sec brings orange flavor into the mix.
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The result is sweet, citrusy and fizzy enough to hide much of the alcohol. That is why someone can take a few large sips and think, "This isn't that strong," but it is. The IBA recipe contains 75ml of alcoholic ingredients before dilution. The actual drinking experience, however, is softened by citrus, sugar, cola, ice and the fact that no single spirit dominates the flavor.
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Ice is another reason the strength of the finished drink can vary. A Long Island is normally built over ice. As the ice melts, water enters the drink and lowers its alcohol concentration. How much dilution takes place depends on how cold the ingredients are, how much ice is used, how long the drink sits and how it is mixed. That means the first few sips and the last few sips aren't necessarily identical.
But dilution shouldn't be confused with removing alcohol. The drink still contains the alcohol that was originally poured into it. You're simply spreading that alcohol through a larger amount of liquid.
The name is another bit of misdirection of this infamous cocktail. There is no iced tea in the standard IBA recipe. The cocktail gets its name because the finished drink, thanks largely to the cola, has an amber-brown appearance similar to iced tea.
One widely repeated story credits bartender Robert "Rosebud" Butt with creating the Long Island Iced Tea in 1972 during a cocktail competition at the Oak Beach Inn. Other accounts dispute the exact birthplace and point to earlier drinks with similar combinations of spirits. Even modern cocktail references describe its origins as uncertain. So, while the drink is strongly associated with Long Island, the history is not quite as neat as its name suggests.
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Not in terms of the spirit itself. A typical whisky might be bottled at around 40% to 46% ABV. A Long Island Iced Tea, once mixed with citrus, syrup, cola and dilution, has a much lower final ABV than a straight pour of whisky.
The problem is how much alcohol goes into the cocktail in the first place. Five different alcoholic ingredients can make the drink deceptively easy to consume. It can taste like a refreshing long drink while containing considerably more alcohol than someone might expect from a similarly sized cocktail. That is also why comparing cocktails simply by their final ABV can be misleading. The amount of pure alcohol in the serving matters too.
There is no special chemical reaction between vodka, rum, gin, and tequila that suddenly makes alcohol stronger. The reason a Long Island can feel potent is much simpler: there is a lot of alcohol in a relatively easy-to-drink cocktail. The sweetness and acidity can make it easier to drink quickly, while the cola and ice make the drink feel lighter than a glass containing several spirits would suggest.
And that is probably the entire trick behind its reputation. The Long Island Iced Tea isn't secretly stronger because five spirits somehow multiply each other's alcohol content. It is strong because a bartender has put several alcoholic pours into one drink, then made the result taste surprisingly refreshing.
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The Long Island Iced Tea has survived for decades because it is a bit ridiculous, but it also works. Vodka, rum, gin, tequila and triple sec don't sound like ingredients that should comfortably share a glass, yet lemon, sugar and cola somehow pull them together.
The IBA's recipe gives the cocktail five alcoholic components, while the commonly cited finished strength is around 22% ABV, although the actual number changes depending on the recipe and dilution. So the next time someone orders one because "it just tastes like iced tea", the name is doing exactly what it was meant to do. It looks harmless. The ingredient
