A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 17, 2005
Long Island: Long Island Ice(d) Tea
JAY LENO: I think this Amy Fisher has gone way too far. Now bars are selling an Amy Fisher Cocktail. Have you had this? It's a Long Island iced tea with a shot on the side.
-- NEWSDAY, 31 January 1993, pg. 8.

Ronald Butt supposedly invented the "Long Island Iced Tea" (an alcoholic drink with just about everything thrown in, except tea) at the Oak Beach Inn in Hampton Bays, Long Island, in the 1970s. There are other contenders for the invention of the drink, however.

I don't have a solid citation from the 1970s yet, but there are many from the early 1980s. THe online Los Angeles Public Library menu collection has "Long Island Ice Tea" in the 1983 menu of Arbuckle's, 1101 Sophia Street, Fredericksburg, VA.

http://alumni.caltech.edu/~nhurvitz/tea.html
There are many recipes out there, but none surpass this one. Many thanks to Dave Fun and Bupos (What was his name again?) for giving me and the world the recipe back in 1983.

11 December 1980, The Times (Shreveport, LA), pg. 2-H col. 1 ad:
PRECINCT 22
(...)
"HOME OF THE LONG ISLAND ICE TEA"

26 March 1981, The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC), "Bartender stirs up wicked drinks" by Josh Kardon, Weekender, pg. 7, cols. 1-2:
"Anyway, first he makes me this Long Island Ice Tea. He shoots in 1 1/2 ounces of both vodka and rum over ice. Then he shoots three-fourths of an ounce of both Triple Sec and gin. He added one ounce of sweet and sour and one-half ounce of Roses lime juice and sprinkled a few drops of Angostura bitters in. Then he shook it, added a half ounce of Coke and stirred. Damndest thing I ever saw. Thought the boy was trying to kill me."

15 October 1981, Hartford (CT) Courant, "In Search of Those Bizarre Drinks" by Karen Mamone an Anne Robb, pg. C1, col. 5:
All summer, people had been downing Long Island Iced Tea, and some unwary patrons who simply asked for "iced tea" and got the L.I. version, told sad tales in tones that suggested that they had staggered through the city afterwards.

Doug obliged us with a kiddie-sized portion of the brew made of gin, vodka, triple sec, tequila, rum, lemon juice and a splash of Coke (for color and comic relief).

This baby was really dangerous because it tasted so surprisingly tame, even refreshing.

11 October 1982, Chicago (IL) Tribune, Suburban Trib, sec. 9, pg. 3, col. 2 ad:
LONG ISLAND ICE TEA
(Guv'ners. -- ed.)

21 November 1982, New York Times, Long Island (section 11), pg. 33, col. 1:
Long Island iced tea is the innocent name given
an excellent and strong tea-based rum punch.
(Restaurant review of Remsen's Garden Restaurant, 950 Wheatley Plaza, Greenvale - ed.)

2 July 1984, Chicago (IL) Daily Herald, section 1, pg. 10:
Long Island Iced Tea 750 ML 3.49
(Southland Liquors ad - ed.)

24 February 1985 New York (NY) Times, Long Island (section 21).
Pg. 1:
Jim Palermo with the drink called Long Island
Iced Tea.
Pg. 5:
L.I. Iced Tea: A New Kick
By PHYLLIS BERNSTEIN

A POTENT alcoholic drink called Long Island Iced Tea is sweeping the Island's bars as well as watering spots across the country, but some bartenders and restaurant managers are expressing concern that the drink is so powerful they have to keep an eye on clients and at times (?) them off.
(...)
The ingredients for Long Island Iced Tea vary from establishment to establishment, as does the price. The basic recipe at Gadgets
(Westbury--ed.) is one-half ounce each of rum, vodka, gin and Triple Sec, three ounces of sour mix and a dash of Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola, spin-blended, poured over ice and served with a lemon wedge. At Emmett's (Carle Place--ed.), one half ounce of tequila is added.

The origin of this sweet-tasting drink, which some people say tastes like ordinary iced tea, is unclear. Several bartenders said they believed it started on local campuses or Long Island discos. Bar patrons interviewed recently said they had drunk it in cities from as nearby as Albany to as far away as Florida and the West Coast.
(...)
She (L.I.I.T. drinker Laurie Aebly - ed.) said she believed the drink
may have originated at her alma mater, the University of South Carolina.

Bill Woerther and Joe Cusmano of Glen Cove, former roommates at Princeton University, and friends of Miss Aebly's, were the designated drivers for the evening. Mr. Woerther, an engineer at a photo circuit company on Long Island, said he first heard about Iced Tea at Princeton. Later, he drank it in Seattle, Texas and Hawaii.
(...)
In her (L.I.I.T. drinker Allison Boyd - ed.) opinion: "If you drink four Iced Teas, you're probably dead."

4 September 1985, Syracuse Post Standard, pg. B7:
Long Island Ice Tea
(Club Cocktails ad - ed.)

Google Books
How to get lost and found in upgraded New Zealand
By John W. McDermott and Bobbye Lee Hughes McDermott
Honolulu, HI: Orafa Pub. Co.
1986
Pg. 14:
The choice of the licensed restaurant goes from a house white to something called Long Island Ice Tea. "What is Long Island Ice Tea?" we asked the waitress. She said "It is Bacardi, tequila, vodka, gin and Cointreau topped with Coke.

7 May 1989, New York (NY) Times, Long Island (section 12), pg. 14, col. 3:
At the L. I. Exchange, "They still like their Long Island Iced Tea,"
said Tony Arbucci, a bartender. Long Island's version of iced tea has just about every hard liquor in it. It can knock your socks off, as one bar patron put it.

2 May 1994, Nation's Restaurant News, pg. 7:
While beer is highlighted as part of the new image (for the Brown Derby Roadhouse of Cleveland - ed.), Texas Teas, similar to Long Island Iced Tea, is a signature alcoholic beverage.

18 February 2001, Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), pg. 6D:
Where on Long Island did Long Island Iced Tea originate? - Chuck Agins, Englewood

Cocktail historians generally credit Robert "Rosebud" Butt of the Oak Beach Inn in Hampton Bay with creating the original Long Island Iced Tea: an ounce of rum, an ounce of gin, an ounce of vodka, an ounce of tequila, a half-ounce of triple sec, a dash of lemon juice and a splash of cola.

2 January 2005, Hindustan Times:
Now the drink. Long Island Iced Tea, made properly, contains equal parts of gin, vodka, rum, triple sec and tequila. It is topped with Pepsi or Coke. The combination of these five alcohols makes a heady cocktail. It is not meant for the timid. I am not one of those who believe in moderation. Life is a boring business and made more so by people who preach moderation in all things.

Robert Butt, a bartender, has been credited with creating this cocktail in the 1970s at the Oak Beach Inn in Hampton Bays, Long Island. Another source tells me that the drink was invented by bored housewives on the same island who added a little of something from everything in the bar cabinet so that their husbands wouldn't find out that they had been drinking. Everyone would assume that they were drinking iced tea. Take all such bar stories with large lumps of salt.

Long Island Iced Tea and I go back a long way. I had my first sip in Phoebe's, a New York bar on the seedy side of town, the Bowery. Asha Coorlawala took me there after a dreadful Off-Off Broadway play at La Mama's. This was thirty years ago.

(Trademark)
Word Mark HOME OF THE FAMOUS LONG ISLAND ICE TEA
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: Restaurant and night club services, featuring Jazz, Blues, Reggae, Comedy and Merchandising. FIRST USE: 19840800. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19840800
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75508178
Filing Date June 19, 1998
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) MDM, LLC T/A TAKOMA STATION TAVERN LLC D.C. 6914 4TH ST. N.W. WASHINGTON D.C. 20012
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date August 9, 1999

(Trademark)
Word Mark LONG ISLAND ICED TEA
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 030. US 046. G & S: iced tea
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75048306
Filing Date January 25, 1996
Current Filing Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Owner (APPLICANT) Nichols, Peter INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 19 Eton Street Melville NEW YORK 11747
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date March 11, 1997

(Trademark)
Word Mark LION'S LONG ISLAND ICED TEA
Goods and Services IC 033. US 047 049. G & S: ALCOHOLIC TEA-BASED BEVERAGES INCLUDING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES PRODUCED FROM A BREWED MALT BASE WITH NATURAL FLAVORS. FIRST USE: 20010420. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20010420
IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Clothing, namely hats, caps, shirts, t-shirts, boxer shorts, and pants. FIRST USE: 20010420. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20010420
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 78003788
Filing Date April 12, 2000
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1B
Published for Opposition September 25, 2001
Registration Number 2832940
Registration Date April 13, 2004
Owner (REGISTRANT) Lion Brewery Inc., The CORPORATION PENNSYLVANIA 700 North Pennsylvania Avenue Wilkes-Barre PENNSYLVANIA 18705
Attorney of Record Jeffrey H. Kaufman
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "LONG ISLAND ICED TEA" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
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