Southern Style Signature Drink

The other night I prayed that God would send me an answer to how to improve my life. Okay, not really, but I needed an intro to this, and I’m feeling very Southern today. What I’m trying to say is I have discovered a South Carolina product that just may have been divinely sent to me in the form of an article in The New York Times. Few from South Carolina have said that about the New York Times, fewer still read it, but this article about Firefly Sweet Tea Flavored Vodka gives good reason to cry “Alleluiah.”

The flagrant irony of an indigenous SC product being brought to my attention via The New York Times aside, I’m hoping this six times distilled spirit may be just the thing to bring me back into the fold of social drinkers. I have allergies and after years of living in denial that almost all alcoholic beverages except for vodka of the top shelf variety affected me in a negative way, I gave up drinking completely. Not even the thrill of downing a bottle of a favorite Cabernet spread out acceptably from 5 – 9 was worth the virulent hangover and asthma attack.Even one glass of wine has been known to make me run for the inhaler.

If one were to judge by the number of blue cans in my recycling bin, anyone would have to admit that my current Diet Rite addiction is as concerning as any other. The blue cans resemble those of Budweiser, which make my choice of beverages at least appear more interesting than embarrassing. But most people don’t know the content of my recycling bins. When I order a water with lemon at neighborhood gatherings while everyone else lives large on margaritas and highly attractive and colorful martinis, trust me, they notice.

Wine drinking above all forms of alcohol consumption proudly reigns as the raison d’etre for many an average suburbanite. Hosts often look as if I’ve rejected them personally when I turn down a libation of their favorite Super Tuscan or crisp Pinot Gris. Is she a reformed alcoholic or a Baptist?, I imagine them wondering as I watch their faces go blank. Unless prodded, I let any and all assumptions ride. I’ll take being perceived as a reformed alcoholic or Baptist any day over prattling about “my asthma and allergies.” And that’s saying something.

So the existence of sweet tea infused vodka gives hope to this stone sober woman who enjoys her Diet Rites just a little too much. I wonder if at the Firefly Distillery located just south of Charleston they pour the sweet tea sideways from plastic pitchers as they do at many a favorite restaurant, to mix it with the high falutin’ vodka.

Sometimes prayers you didn’t know you had are answered.

The verdict: the stuff’s marvelous. My friends under 30 years old all have signature cocktails, so I, in middle age rebellion, now have one too. It’s smooth as can be, not too sweet, and tastes just like the Bojangles variety with a little extra kick. Plus no asthma. Since it looks the same as sweet tea without the vodka, I can imbibe at all hours of the day without anybody knowing!

If I was a real native South Carolinian, I would be giving you my Aunt Betty’s recipe for sweet tea about now. But as a Virginian, I wasn’t familiar with sweet tea as the most important non alcoholic fluid next to water until I moved here. I also mistakenly thought Virginia was in the South. By the way, the sweet tea of the non-alcoholic variety we drink comes in a jug.

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