fixation friday: sweet tea vodka

I had a really hard time trying to decide what I wanted to write about for Fixation Friday this week. Truth be told I laid awake in bed until 12 midnight last night with different ideas swirling around. I will also say the reason I was up so late was because I was full of excitement for my buddy Surferwife and her Chelsea encounter of the BEST kind. It's always fun to see someone you know on tv (even if I only know her via the internet). I also get to watch a certain someone that I went to school with from K-12th grade each week on the tv show Southland. Maybe you've heard of him? Shawn Hatosy. That is another story for another time though... right now it's Fixation Friday.

After tossing and turning I narrowed my post down to a few different things. I figured I ran my trap enough about turquoise in my last post and that I should move on from that (did you notice the color update? the turquoise definitely got the most votes). After I nixed that idea my mind turned to the warmer weather and thoughts of BBQ's and then to the fact that in the morning it would be FRIDAY and I still hadn't thought of which drink I wanted to consume this weekend at a friend's party. For months now I've been harboring a mini bar in my freezer (where we keep all our liquor). I have lots of left overs, or 2 or 3 shots worth of different liquor up there. I've been nursing a bottle of Captain Morgan 100 Proof since Christmas. Not for lack of liking it or being able to handled it but because honestly, I don't know the next time I'll ever buy that for myself. M's been fixated on mixing his drinks with water lately. He figures it's better for his waistline, however not so much for my snore drama on the nights when he passes out before me on the weekends. He loves mixing whiskey and water, a trick he may have learned from my father when he purchased M a large bottle of George Dickle Whiskey. It's very smooth, and goes down well with just a hint of water. This is what he tells me - I only do shots of whiskey and they usually burn going down for me. I'm not a seasoned professional in the ways of whiskey though. M used to drink his whiskey on the rocks, straight, no added filler when I met him. On a wild night he will still do this. I myself can't bare to drink any liquor with just straight water, it has to be shot, or mixed with something for me to drink it. Maybe some club soda, or tonic water with a twist of lemon or lime but not straight tap water... until recently. This leads me to my Fixation Friday - are you still with me?

Last year while at a friends bar I was introduce to the sweetest nectar the liquor gods had ever bestowed on the human race. R, one of the owners of our favorite local bar was chatting with us outside before went in. He told me I had to tell the bartender to make me a Firefly. I had no idea what it was but he told me to trust him. R knows his business so I did. I ordered the Firefly and I have never been happier trying a new cocktail.

Three words, Sweet Tea Vodka. ZOMG this stuff is amazing. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before but my spring fever is acting up and I just had to talk about it again. And I will probably discuss it about 20 more times before the summer is over, so there.

Imagine the best glass of sweet tea you've ever tasted. Now imagine that tea infused with vodka. Still with me? Good! Do you like lemon in your tea? I do, I think it's a Yankee thing, but seeing as I was born and raised in Maryland - you know, Yankee parts. Well at least according to most Southerner's I've met, I'm a Yankee. Seriously, I won't go into the whole below the Mason Dixon line thing, they just stare at me like I'm from another planet when I do, so I won't bore you. Anyunion, do you like lemon in your tea? Do you enjoy a Tom Collins Arnold Palmer from time to time? You know, Lemonade mixed with sweet tea. It's only like my favorite non-alcoholic drink ever. And it goes great with grilled foods and BBQ! Well let me introduce you to what I like to call a Tipsy Tom Collins.

TIPSY TOM COLLINS ARNOLD PALMER

(Thank you EL for the correction - I knew that didn't sound right !!!

Hey at least this time I wasn't calling a celeb baby by the wrong name again, right?)

It's simple really, add ice to a glass, 

pour yourself a little bit of lemonade

mix it with a little bit of this sweet tea vodka deliciousness 

and you're done!

You may need to mess with the chemistry of this. I like my drink to taste a bit more like tea which gives me more vodka but to each his own. I have to say my favorite brand is the one pictured below. Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. Many more have come out on the market since last year. 

via google • I'm partial to Firefly, we're summer BFF's.

via google • Burnette's, Sweet Carolina & Firefly

Also available is

via google • Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea

I have yet to try the Sweet Carolina and I have never seen the Burnett's where I've shopped previously. After researching it's probably a good thing. I don't do well with cheap liquor, especially vodka and I think Burnett may be bottom shelf goods. I've sampled the Jeremiah Weed, and it's tasty but the name turns me off. I used to go to school with a boy named Jeremiah, he got really sick of me singing the song about the bullfrog to him in middle school and started to act sort of bitchy to me. Since then we've made up, and been cool with each other - we're even facebook pals now. However that being said, it IS tasty and seems a bit stronger in flavor than the Firefly.

I am thinking about sampling the Sweet Carolina this weekend. I like that it comes in different sweet tea variety flavors as well (minus the mint, that sort of grosses me out) - also to be noted Sweet Carolina has started marketing a Lemonade flavored vodka. This may taste great with water. Which is what started this post in the first place, right?  M usually takes a few hits off the bottle of Firefly when I purchase it. He mixes his with water. If you don't make the drink too strong you hardly notice the vodka burn and enjoy the sweet tea flavor. I don't know the science about how this stuff is made, all I know is that it's good and I will obsess about it all summer long.

Spring is here, and this is my message to you. If you're looking for a new drink to sip on at cook-outs or hanging out with friends and you truly love Sweet Tea but don't want your teeth to fall out of your face, you might trip sipping a little of this be it with water, lemonade or your own made up drink recipe. If you make one up and it's really good, you better share it with me!

So there you have it peeps, my Friday Fixation. I'm SO happy it's Friday! I'm really looking forward to hitting up the local ABC Store to snag myself a bottle of this yummy, yummy stuff and to having sunshine and 68+ degree weather most of the weekend. This will make up for the possible thunderstorms they are calling for on Sunday. Sunday is my lazy day anyway, I ain't worried one bit!

CHEERS YA'LL! (Southern for You All). *wink*