Well, that's what author JS Moore claims in his new book Understanding
Apples (Outskirts Press, October 2006).
The Long Island Iced
Tea Recipe isn't from New York at all. It first surfaced in the
1920's in a community called Long Island in Kingsport Tennessee." "The
inventor of it was Old Man Bishop. He passed the recipe on to his son Ransom -
who perfected the drink in the 1940's. This is a fact." The Long Island
Ice Tea Recipe" is a relative newcomer on the cocktail scene.
Unlike some of the classic cocktails such as the Manhattan or the
Martini which date back some 100 years, the Long Island Ice Tea made it's
first appearance in the late 1970's.
With such a short history it
should be easy to spot the grains of truth among the chaff.
However,
Mr. Moore claims the Long Island Ice Tea was invented in the 1920's making the
drink significantly older than originally thought and placing it's birth in
the middle of...
Prohibition
In an era of secrecy, smuggling,
gangsters, shootouts and undercover "dry agents" the illegal consumption of
alcohol was kept very low key.
Word of the Long Island Ice Tea Recipe,
a new and tasty cocktail that looks innocent (an important attribute during
Prohibition) may have traveled fast, but during Prohibition no one is going to
brag about inventing it. Maybe that's why the Tennessee story hasn't surfaced
until now.
Although it was common at that time to disguise cocktails
as non-alcoholic drinks.
Seems like everyone wants to take credit for
inventing the Long Island Ice Tea Recipe and there are claims far and
wide ranging from New York to Texas, Tennessee and Jones Beach.
The
generally accepted theory is the story about a bartender, either Chris
Bendicksen or Robert Butt (depending on your source) who invented the cocktail
at the Oak Beach Inn (either OBI South or OBI East, again depending on the
source) on Long Island, New York. |
