Stevi Deter, over at Two at the Most is our host for Mixology Monday this evening and has chosen the theme of the Guilty Pleasure. As always I am posting at the last minute, with my fingers crossed that I finish before the midnight deadline.

This theme is actually a real treat, because everyone needs to get something off of their chest. We all have a cocktailian skeleton in our closets, and I have a whole graveyard of them, each associated with a certain (usually unfortunate) period of my life, where they play symbolically like the equally shameful soundtrack of the period. There is the Red Bull/Vodka, first of all. A nasty secret shame of a drink that I haven't ordered in years but would drink if someone put one in front of me. There is of course the Piña Colada, which I actually think is a good drink that has been maligned by cocktail history because it has been made poorly so many times. Looking back further in my personal cocktail history, there is the Purple Fuzzy F*cker, a combination of Absolut Citron and Welch's grape juice, that we drank in those early years of exploring our tipsy selves(think high school); it has been a dozen years probably since I had this but I bet it would bring back so many sense memories if I tasted it right now. Then there is the entire Grasshopper family, which I am apparently obsessed with.

What I really want to come out about is my attraction to the Long Island Iced Tea. It was one of the first drinks that I became fond of when I first began to drink legally in Texas. Frank Giovinazzi was a brash New Yorker and the bartender at the restaurant where I worked, and he made them for me often. Over the years we drank them whenever we went out on Sixth St. and someone was barking them from the door of some shady establishment. "Two dollar Long Islands!" they would shout, and we would enter, against our best interests. The two dollars would buy a plastic cup of well booze with a splash of soda gun sweet & sour and Coke. It did the trick, but a culinary experience it was not.

Then came Dale DeGroff. When we bought his book that fateful night at the Half Price Books at our house, little did we know that we were about to discover not just an unknown world of classical craft mixology, but also a professional revision of some of our old favorites, namely the Long Island Iced Tea. As Dale says, "when made properly, the drink tastes great and doesn't have to be an evening ender. The key is to have all the spirits present but in small amounts." In his recipe, the total booze count is 2 1/2 oz., which is a reasonable amount and a far cry from the frat party favorite that you find in downtown Austin on any given night. I have been making these Top Shelf Long Islands for people for a couple of years now, and they are always surprised by how nice the drink can taste when it is not serving the function of Panty Dropper. As a twist, we use Boylan Cane Cola instead of Coke. It is made with pure cane sugar instead of HFCS, and has a subtle clovey flavor that I like. And since it is from New Jersey, it seems appropriate in this drink.

**I apologize for the crappy cell phone photo, I left my camera at a Flor de Caña cocktail contest tonight that we competed in.