Iced Tea & Limoncello in harmony
Sometimes you don’t have to go all the way to Rome to do like the Romans do. Sometimes you can spend a weekend in a nearby hotel decorated in the Italian flair like Leigh just did and spent a weekend at the Siena Hotel in Chapel Hill, North-Carolina, and feel like you are in Italy. Sometimes you can bring souvenirs home from your travels and enjoy them in your everyday life, like I do with our souvenirs from our trip to Tuscany. Sometimes only what you have to do is to shop at your local grocery store and discover imported foods or try a new recipe that give you a culinary trip. Today I am presenting you two cocktails I created with Lipton Iced Tea products. I know what you are thinking: iced tea in a bottle isn’t really what you’d call an exotic culinary trip, but that’s my entire point here! Just like Leigh was able to experience the mix of Southern Hospitality and Italian Romance at Siena Hill, you can experience a mixture of Lipton Iced Tea and Italian Limoncello and feel like you are taking an exciting trip to Italy while staying in the comforts of your home and enjoying the moment. It’s like the Ying and Yang, homey and exotic, expensive and cheap mixed together in a perfect harmony. Mixing things up to form a new blend is the way to bring best of two world together! Limoncello is a liqueur from Southern Italy, and it is typically served as an digestivo, an after dinner drink from small glasses. It’s pretty potent with around 32% of alcohol, and it’s quite strong in taste with the mixed bitterness and sweetness of the lemons. I recommend keeping your Limoncello bottle in the freezer to keep it nice and cold, ready for serving. The two Lipton Iced Tea drinks used for these cocktails are Lipton 100 Calorie Half & Half (Tea & Lemonade) and Lipton Diet Green Tea Honey Ginseng. I admit, I typically brew my iced tea myself if I make iced tea drinks at home, but Lipton sent me these two to try and these ready made iced teas make these cocktails super easy to make even on a vacation or in a vacation home, or take to a potluck type of gathering like a girls’ night in. The bottom lime: this is all about getting the everyday luxury with a very small effort!
Lipton Palmer
One of the most famous Limoncello cocktails in the US is The Leland Palmer. It’s a cocktail hack of a drink called Arnold Palmer, which consists of iced tea and lemonade, named after American golfer Arnold Palmer. The Leland Palmer on the other hand is named after a character in the Twin Peaks TV show (remember?) and it was invented by Damon Boelte, bar manager at Prime Meats in Brooklyn. In addition to lemonade and iced tea it has Italian Limoncello in it to give it an additional kick. The Leland Palmer calls for freshly brewed jasmine tea and hand squeezed lemon juice, so my Lipton Palmer is quite the easier version! INGREDIENTS: 1 parts Limoncello 6 parts Lipton 100 Calorie Half & Half (Tea & Lemonade) ice 3 parts sparkling water lemon wedges as garnish Mix Limoncello and Lipton 100 Calorie Half & Half (Tea & Lemonade) on ice and add sparkling water. Garnish with lemon wedges.
Green Tea Ginseng Limoncello
Out of these two drinks this one is my personal favorite! It’s a little less sweet and the fresh mint and the Green Tea Honey Ginseng go perfectly together. 1 parts Limoncello 6 parts Lipton Diet Green Tea Honey Ginseng fresh mint leaves ice lemon wedges as garnish Muddle mint leaves with crushed ice, mix Limoncello and Lipton Diet Green Tea Honey Ginseng. Serve on ice, garnish with lemon and mint leaves.
Mix it up!
Together with Lipton Iced Tea we would like to encourage you to mix it up a little, and perhaps to host a fun girls’ night in and give these recipes a try.
Lipton Iced Tea is mixing it up with Dance Central 3, and together they are hosting the ‘Game On’ sweepstakes. You can enter to win one of four ultimate entertainment room makeovers which include a new Samsung TV, sound system, Xbox 360 Kinect bundle and console, Dance Central 3 and more. Find out how here.
How are you mixing it up? Do you ever combine two opposites to combine a perfect blend?
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Lipton Iced Tea. The opinions and text are all mine.
