Waiter, my tea tastes just like vodka

By ALLISON ASKINS - aaskins@thestate.com

Sweet tea.

Vodka.

Sweet tea and vodka.

What’s not to love? And, no, we’re not talking about that Long Island variety.

After all, “What does Long Island know about sweet tea?”

That’s the question Firefly Vodka owners Scott Newitt and Jim Irvin of Wadmalaw Island are quick to ask when touting their newest vodka flavor — Sweet Tea Vodka — which is scheduled to hit local liquor stores as early as Wednesday.

Their product — vodka infused with tea grown on Wadmalaw Island and sweetened with Louisiana sugar cane — is distilled at the newly licensed Firefly Distillery, also on Wadmalaw.

“We’re the first distillery in the state and the only distillery in the world that distills muscadine wine into vodka,” said Newitt. But that’s their other flavor. (Take note, vodkas infused with locally grown watermelons and peaches are soon to follow. In fact, they, like the sweet tea variety, will sport “Certified South Carolina Grown” labels.)

In a state where the Legislature has deemed sweet tea the state drink, you have to wonder what took the idea so long to bubble up.

After all, antebellum Charleston was known for its alcoholic tea punches. They took on the names of the societal organizations that served them. The famous “Charleston Receipts” cookbook still touts numerous such punches on its pages, all dating back to that era.

And in a state where a person cannot survive summer’s torrid heat without copious glasses of sweet iced tea, we should have seen this one coming.

“A grand marketing move,” notes Southern foodways writer and expert John T. Edge of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Mississippi.

It looks like tea.

It smells like tea.

And with a splash of lemon, it tastes like a glass of good, strong sweet tea, but with a nice kick that will probably have many South Carolinians seeing stars (or fireflies) by summer’s end.

“This stuff is wicked good,” Kristian Niemi, owner of Gervais & Vine in the Vista, said after sipping a sample. “I can imagine that just about every restaurant in town that has this is going to have some kind of specialty cocktail.”

Gervais & Vine certainly will.

Niemi said the 70-proof spirit is tasting pretty darn good served on the rocks with a twist of lemon. (The restaurant expects to be able to offer the cocktail by April 18, if not sooner.)

“I tell you what, this is the vodka that’s going to put them on the map,” Niemi said.

Reach Askins at (803) 771-8614.