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Here’s the Long Island Iced Tea’s High-Proof Origin Story

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Though some Islanders dispute the official account, Bob “Rosebud” Butt invented the Long Island Iced Tea — that mysterious farrago of high-proof spirits, triple sec, and a splash of Coke — back at the Oak Beach Inn East in the early seventies. (If you want to delve into the freighted mythology of the O.B.I. in general, pull up a chair and pore through some recollections here.) In any case, the cocktail is now poured with gusto at bars from Phuket to Reykjavik and has bombed hundreds of thousands of people out of their minds for almost a half-century. Here’s Rosebud, who even has a “LI ICE T” vanity license plate, to tell the story himself. For PBS, no less.

via Laughing Squid

Here’s the Long Island Iced Tea’s High-Proof Origin Story