Long island iced tea was created in the 1970’s.  It sounds innocent and looks like normal iced tea, but has a large amount of alcohol (at the bare minimum, four different kinds!) and is notorious as a drink that will get someone drunk very quickly!  It was extremely popular in the 1980’s, and though it has lost popularity a bit in recent years, it is still know nationwide and is an American drink.

There are a few different stories about its history; one of the most popular stories is that it was created by a bartender, named Robert Buttu, at the Oak Beach Inn in Long Island, New York.  He named it Long Island iced tea because the cola and the ice made it look like iced tea; in some variations (but not many), tea is used instead of cola.

However, there is also a popular story that it is named for the community of Long Island in Tennessee, and goes as far back as the 1920’s.  In the 1920’s, Prohibition was the order of the day and alcohol was illegal.  The story goes that the Long Island iced tea looked like a non-alcoholic iced tea, and people were able to get away with drinking it, even though there is no iced tea in it at all, and it has a huge concentration of alcohol.

Of course, the Long Island iced tea has many variations, and everyone has their favorite.  It’s completely possible that it was created in different forms in different areas of America.