Back on Monday a neighbor waved me over to his backyard soiree; I’d been savoring the aroma of ribs smoldering in his smoker since early that morning.
He handed me a glass dripping condensation on that humid, sunny afternoon and said “You look like you could use a glass of my Sweet Texas Tea”.
[Side bar: There are places in the South where “sweet tea” contains such astronomical amounts of sugar dissolved in brewed ice tea you could use it in place of head cement for flies, or perhaps for gluing unruly small children to the floor in the far corner of the kitchen. I believe back in my organic chemistry class years ago we’d have classed it as a supersaturated (or hyper-saturated) solution.]
One quick sip of my neighbor’s brew quickly revealed a layer of mint, good bourbon and a burst of bright lemon goodness. This was not the cloyingly sweet, carb-crash inducing, how-much-sugar-is-really-in-here classic deep Alabama sweet tea.
My response was a hearty “hot damn” and then to shamelessly beg for the recipe, presented here for your summer adult beverage pleasure.
The ribs weren’t bad either, but these are better.
2 mint sprigs
2 ounces good Bourbon
1 ounce Black Tea syrup
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 dashes the Bitter Truth Lemon BittersGarnish: Fresh mint leaves
Black Tea Syrup
8 oz. water
4 tbsp. loose black tea
1 cup sugar
Make the black tea syrup. Bring the water to a boil, remove from the heat, and place an infuser with the tea in the hot water to steep for five minutes.
Remove the infuser, return the tea to a low boil and stir in the sugar until dissolved, remove from heat and cool.
Shake up some sweet tea. Muddle the mint sprigs in a shaker, pour in the remainder of the ingredients and shake, shake, shake. Strain into an ice-filled tall (collins) glass and garnish with a fresh sprig of mint.
Enjoy.
