Tampa Tea

 Tampa Tea

    I didn't intentionally pick this drink to make (to enjoy with my fried cheese balls appetizer), but it just so happens that it is Super Bowl Weekend and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are playing in the game.  I am rooting for the Bucs, because the brother of a co-worker friend of mine is on the Bucs. In his first NFL season, he has the chance to play in a Super Bowl. 

    This recipe is in the 1958 Good Housekeeping's Book of Ice Creams & Cool Drinks cookbook. I will be making more recipes from this book, because "Hello! It has ice cream in the title!!!" This drink is super, super easy. It is just black tea, orange juice, sugar, lime juice and ice water. Your base is black tea, so you make that first, by boiling water and steeping two teabags for at least 3 minutes. Stir in a 1/2 cup of sugar to the hot tea, until the sugar is dissolved. I mixed my 2 1/2 cups of orange juice into my 4 cups of ice water and added the 1/2 cup of lime juice, then stirred in the tea. 

    This tea drink is good, but I would make it again with less sugar and would probably even try it without the extra 1/2 cup of sugar. I also would make a stronger tea base with maybe 4 teabags instead of 2 teabags. Do it to your taste though.  Use all the sugar. Add more or less tea.  The recipe calls for pouring 8 tall ice filled, glasses of this concoction and garnishing with fresh pineapple fingers or sprigs of mint.  

    One last suggestion is that I feel that this drink would make a good base for a mixed alcoholic drink. Try gin, vodka, tequila, bourbon or whiskey.  I have the first three and am not a big fan of the last two, so that's a no-go for me on the bourbon and whiskey. Make sure that if you have little ones in your household, you add liquor to only the glasses for adults.  

This is my oh, so helpful helper, Rooster.