Té helado sin té.

DINING & WINE

A Taste of Freedom By GABRIELLE HAMILTON Published: June 27, 2007

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times Long Island iced tea.

ONCE when I was about 13 years old, my best friend, Renee, and I did that thing where you each tell your parents that you are sleeping over at the other's house, and they don't even check. With relative ease, we found ourselves distinctly unchaperoned and hitchhiking the 20 miles to the Trenton, N.J., train station and catching a train to New York City. With even greater ease, we found ourselves — such is the power of the teenage sense of immortality — perched on bar stools at an Upper West Side restaurant saying, "Um, I think I'll have a Long Island iced tea, please." It was the only drink we knew to order. We'd been getting blitzed on them for some time by siphoning off our parents' liquor and replacing it with tap water. I remember being curled up on the orange shag rug, feeling the whole planet spin. The bartender did not card us. The bartender did not roll his eyes to the heavens. He filled — freehand — two giant tulip-shape glasses that could have doubled as hurricane lamps with well liquors, prefab sour mix and cola from a sticky soda gun. And set them down in front of us. We were both the youngest in our families and in so many ways by the time we were 10 we were practically 20. We blew smoke rings. We wore eye shadow. But we were, decisively, not 20. We pooled our crumpled bills and quarters, parsed out in stacks of four, and paid our bill to the penny. We did not tip. Poor service? No, we just didn't know to. That's how young we were. Renee and I made it back unharmed. We caught the last train to Trenton and because we were lit and he was the only other guy in our car, we met a young comedian on the train. We fell over in our seats laughing at all his jokes. And he drove us home and let us out at the end of Renee's silent driveway and we were safe and unmolested, and we grew up and lived our lives. And I am now in my 40's and still drink Long Island iced tea. In spite of having had the kind of adolescence that had orange shag and startlingly distracted parents — some of the things that have made people my age fashionably full of irony — I have never succumbed to that deadly stance. I drink Long Island iced tea sincerely. It is not part of a fashion trend that favors Peter Frampton haircuts and Tab. To be sure, I am not drinking exactly the same Long Island iced tea. Now it is a carefully measured cocktail, made in a tall pint glass packed with ice cubes, filled with premium liquors, topped with Coke from a freshly cracked glass bottle. And I usually stick to just one, with some very delicious fried thing to eat, like fat-bellied clams or oysters with a spicy tartar sauce. The food absorbs the alcohol in just the right way so you get high but not blitzed. Which is safer when hitchhiking. Related Recipe: Recipe: Long Island Iced Tea Published: June 27, 2007 Adapted from Gabrielle Hamilton Time: 10 minutes 3/4 ounce tequila 3/4 ounce vodka 3/4 ounce gin 3/4 ounce white rum 1 1/2 ounces triple sec 3/4 ounce cola 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice. Pour all ingredients into a pint glass filled with ice and stir. Let sit for 5 minutes. Stir again. Serve. Yield: 1 cocktail.

More on Drinks for Memories.... Drinks for Memories Iced Coffee ?, no sweat. Chapter 1: I Drank the Water Forbidden Pleasure in the Desert The Cherries of Persia For a Future That's Always Rosy Dry Dock It's Not

Copyright by the New York Times 2007