Southerners take their food seriously, but what’s in the glass matters almost as much. From a front porch in July to a tailgate or a wedding reception, somebody is going to hand you something to drink.
The drinks below show up over and over in Southern life, some every day, some saved for celebrations, and a couple with enough kick to require a designated driver. Knowing what they are and when to serve them is part of being a good host or a good guest.
Sweet tea
Sweet tea is the everyday drink of the South, served at lunch, supper, and pretty much any time someone walks in the door. It’s strong black tea, sweetened while it’s still hot so the sugar dissolves completely, then poured over ice. Some folks add lemon, some don’t.
The earliest known recipe for sweet iced tea appears in Marion Cabell Tyree’s 1879 cookbook Housekeeping in Old Virginia, which called for green tea rather than the black tea most of us use today. Sweet tea became widely associated with the South in the early twentieth century, when both ice and sugar were easier to come by…