Iced Tea
Make tea according to preceding recipe and pour over cracked ice in tall glasses. Add slice of lemon and powdered sugar to taste. A sprig of mint may be added.
A two-line recipe that assumes you have just made a pot of hot tea by the entry above it. The only real technique question is how to keep it from tasting weak and looking cloudy.
- Brew for the iceThe tea is poured hot over a full glass of ice, which melts fast and waters the drink down noticeably. Make the tea stronger than you would drink it hot, or the glass ends up thin.
- Cracked iceCracked ice meant a block broken up with a pick, giving irregular shards that chill quickly and melt quickly. Standard cubes chill more slowly but dilute less; either works, but with cubes you can brew closer to normal strength.
- CloudinessHot tea chilled abruptly in the refrigerator goes hazy as tannins and caffeine bind and precipitate. It is harmless and affects looks only. Pouring hot tea straight over ice, as here, actually helps, since the shock is brief and the tea is drunk at once.
- Powdered sugarIn 1919 this generally meant granulated sugar ground fine rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today, though usage was not wholly consistent. Superfine (caster) sugar is the closest equivalent; simple syrup dissolves more reliably in a cold glass.
- The mintSlap the sprig once between your palms before dropping it in. Bruising releases the oils; shredding or muddling it turns the drink grassy and leaves flecks in the glass.
- YieldFigure a tall glass at 12 ounces, of which ice takes up about half. A quart of strong brewed tea fills about five glasses.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of non-alcoholic drink books that appeared as national Prohibition came into view — the title is the period slang for going dry. Iced tea itself was already ordinary by then; it spread through the American South in the later nineteenth century, once manufactured ice and commercial iceboxes made a cold drink possible at home, and it is often credited with a great leap in popularity at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, a story usually repeated as tradition rather than documented fact. What is documented is that recipes for iced tea with lemon and sugar appear in American cookbooks well before 1904. Its place here is telling: a temperance drink book needed something a host could serve in a tall glass with mint in it, looking for all the world like a julep.