Electric Iced Tea

Lemon juice and lemon-lime soda are both faintly yellow, and yellow over blue makes green. Nothing has gone wrong. For the electric blue of the photographs, use a clear soda, keep the lemon short, and pour the curaçao in last so it streaks.

Dried orange peel with a bitter edge, sweeter than triple sec. The color is added; the liqueur underneath belongs to the same orange family. Cheap bottles taste of sugar and dye alone, so if the drink matters, buy one that names laraha or bitter orange.

Mix the four spirits, the curaçao and the lemon juice ahead of time and keep it cold, then pour 90 ml per glass over ice and top each one with soda. Never batch the soda. Expect a party glass to hold roughly half the liquor of a made-to-order one.

Usually near enough. Naming in this family is loose, and an Electric Lemonade tends to drop a spirit or two and lean harder on the soda. If you're ordering rather than pouring, ask what's in it, because the range between bars is enormous.

A classic Electric Iced Tea calls for 15 ml (0.5 oz) Vodka, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Gin, 15 ml (0.5 oz) White rum, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Tequila, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Blue curaçao, 22 ml (0.75 oz) Fresh lemon juice, 60 ml (2 oz) Lemon-lime soda. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Electric Iced Tea is roughly 18% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it about as strong as a glass of wine.

An Electric Iced Tea is built directly in the glass over ice — no shaker required. Add the ingredients in order and give it a brief, gentle stir.