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typically southern beverages


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What are some typically Southern drinks, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, that the "natives" prefer? The Chik-Fil-A thread here on the Southeast Forum has, at its end (as of today anyway!), a very brief reference to Mountain Dew and 'Kickapoo Joyjuice' ... which made me consider what it is that Southerners use to quench their thirst in the heat and humidity? :rolleyes:

Even if you don't happen to live south of the Mason-Dixon Line, what southern style beverages do you associate with this region of the country? :biggrin:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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Bourbon, of course, an integral part of the vaunted mint julep ..... and then there is my old college favorite, consumed with no small pleasure, which acted as antifreeze in the subfreezing temperatures of the Dartmouth - Cornell football game one homecoming weekend in Ithaca, NY, when I had no sensation in my extremities ... namely, Southern Comfort! :laugh:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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FRESCA!!! It always reminds me of my grandparents (both long gone) when they lived in Ft Lauderdale...it seemed like that's all that ANYONE ever drank down there. Still love it to this day.

Agreed on mint juleps--finally had one at Churchill Downs last year. And the half iced tea/half lemonade is another personal favorite.

"I'm not eating it...my tongue is just looking at it!" --My then-3.5 year-old niece, who was NOT eating a piece of gum

"Wow--this is a fancy restaurant! They keep bringing us more water and we didn't even ask for it!" --My 5.75 year-old niece, about Bread Bar

"He's jumped the flounder, as you might say."

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Some people order "half and half" and they mean they want half sweet tea and half unsweet. I always just assume that they want a big glass of coffee creamer, though.

Which is perfectly acceptable on Atkins!! :laugh:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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I've always thought of Lemonade and the "Arnold Palmer" as a Southern drink.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

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Blenheim's Old No. 3 Hot Ginger Ale.

The best ginger ale on the planet, bottled in South Carolina since 1903. Makes a bourbon-and-ginger to die for. The secret, in addition to their recipe (which uses tons of actual ginger :wub: ) is that their bottling plant is built adjacent to an artesian mineral-water spring.

Their diet ginger ale is also about the most palatable diet drink I've ever had, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

Now that I'm in NYC, I buy it by the case right from the source:

Blenheim Bottlers

P. 0. Box 452

Hamer, SC 29547

1-800-270-9344

enrevanche <http://enrevanche.blogspot.com>

Greenwich Village, NYC

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

- Mark Twain

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Since this has devolved into a general thread about all things southern, how about Mountain Dew when it was Mountain Dew? In the green returnable bottles with the enamaled label featuring a hillbilly. Anyone else remember this?

Not only do I remember this, but my mother knew the guy who invented Mountain Dew. Not the original formula (never widely marketed, lemon-lime like Sprite or 7 Up), but the one that was eventually marketed by Pepsi. His name was Bill Jones and he was from Marion, VA. His family had fallen on very hard times in the period before he hit it big with Mountain Dew, and my mother recalls his wife having to hold her shoes together with canning rubbers.

[above quote scavenged from the Chik-fil-A thread]

Can you pee in the ocean?

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Coke is THE southern beverage. It is so Southern that it is generally used as the word for all soft drinks (as we discussed recently in this thread concerning regional soft drink names).

Invented in Atlanta, first bottled by the Beidenharns's in Vicksburg, MS and Monroe, LA. All below current day I-20. That's Southern and that's Coke.

Ice Tea probably gets my second vote (the sweet tea thing is overrated IMHO-we don't all drink it that way :raz::laugh: ).

In my part of the country Barq's is the local drink and you can still get the cane sugar stuff in the Baton Rouge area (the family held the rights to distribute in glass and pre and post mixed syrup in the BR area) They have a cool, antique type "shaker" line that they use everyday. It's worth a stop if you have the time.

Dr Pepper is pretty damn Southern as well.

As far as alcohol goes The Sazerac and the Ramos Gin Fizz are both New Orleans Inventions, and although it's hard to tell- New Orleans is in the SOuthern United States and not the Carribean. :laugh:

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Coke is THE southern beverage. It is so Southern that it is generally used as the word for all soft drinks (as we discussed recently in this thread concerning regional soft drink names).

I would have to agree with you about Coca Cola being the consummate southern beverage, but it is now so global that I had forgotten ...

I live in Atlanta which houses their headquarters and the Coke Museum downtown .. Annually, I took my classes on field trips there and they were delighted with the fountains which could shoot Coke across the room and into their waiting cups! it was unique, I have to admit! :shock:

Taught a child whose father was an upper level exec at Coca Cola ... one day he confided in me that his parents had strictly forbidden him to say "the p word" ... I asked him what it was, of course, and fully expected the sweet little tyke to say "penis" .. of course, he guiltily uttered the word Pepsi and turned bright red ... :laugh:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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IN my life I have probably only had three or 4 pepsi drinks of any sort. I grew up in a Coke Town (Monroe, LA) and we actually had home beverage delivery until I was in High School. It was great. Cases of those little bottles of Coke straight from the bottling plant delivered to the door, just like milk.

One thing that I miss is the small bottles and the 12 ouncers with the names of the towns where the bottles were originally used stamped onto the bottom of the bottle. There used to be tons of plants until the interstate sytem allowed for consolidation of the plants. All they make in Monroe now is syrup and I believe that they still bottle runs of the small bottles, but that's about it.

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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One thing that I miss is the small bottles and the 12 ouncers with the names of the towns where the bottles were originally used stamped onto the bottom of the bottle. There used to be tons of plants until the interstate sytem allowed for consolidation of the plants. All they make in Monroe now is syrup and I believe that they still bottle runs of the small bottles, but that's about it.

One enormous section of the Coca Cola Museum is dedicated to the bottling history of the product with quite a display of the original bottles and then all those through the years to the present ... worth a look should you come to Atlanta (to see Dave the Cook, of course!) :biggrin:

The World of Coca Cola

Edited by Gifted Gourmet (log)

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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"all day preachin' & dinner on the ground", home-coming, revivals, camp meeting, &c where under the big oak tree--about midway between the poured concrete table where all the food was displayed and the cemetery and far enough fr/ the gravel parking lot to keep the dirt out of them--were two huge wash tubs. One of those wash tubs had tea and the other one had lemonade. Both of them had a huge block of ice floating right smack dab in the middle. The tea, or swee-tee--as it was pronounced, contained so much sugar it would actually make the fillings in your teeth hurt and the lemonade was not far behind. There was always one old gentleman in the church who was responsible for the lemonade and he would have some contraption--usually of his own making--that would squeeze the hundreds of lemons necessary to make the lemonade. Usually he would have a folding lawn chair set up some where in the vicinity and tell any one who would care to listen (& usually some who did not) about every thing he had done to make the lemonade for that afternoon. The story was the same every year but children would always find it riveting and adults would just roll their eyes and find a reason to be else where.

Then, of course, there is Co-coler. If you ever hear any one put the extra "ca" in the middle then you know they either "ain't from 'roun' here" or are "puttin' on airs". There is nothing in this world like walking into the little general store and flipping a nickel on the counter then reaching your arm--all the way past the elbow--into that big cooler and feeling around for that fluted stubby bottle. Invariably you would grab something and about half way out realize--and all you needed was the shape of the bottle to know--that you had an "arah see" instead of a "co-coler" (I never did understand why RC has two syllables and Coca-Cola is four syllables yet when said properly they both have three syllables). At that point you weighed your options. You could continue to lose all feeling in your hand and arm while fishing around for the "co-coler" and hope that they would not have to amputate your fingers b/c of frost bite or you just pulled out the "arah see" & asked for a moon pie. I think there is a law in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and some counties in Mississippi that forbid the drinking of an "arah see" cola w/o a moon pie.

When you were a little older you noticed that at several gatherings of adult men there was a paper "poke" that was passed around. It was done very discreetly and, although every one knew exactly what was happening, no one--at least no one in polite society--mentioned it. Inside that "poke" was a bottle of brown liquid that you would later discover was bourbon. Either that or there was a Mason jar w/ the clearest liquid you ever did see and woe be unto any one who thought it might be water. Many a young lad has discovered the difference on a "double yellow dog dare" and regretted his bravery for several days after the fact.

in loving memory of Mr. Squirt (1998-2004)--

the best cat ever.

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When I think of long summer evenings spent on a front porch somewhere in the south, watching the setting sun peeking from behind the magnolia tree, and the shadows slowly crawling toward you across the lawn, and the fireflies beginning to flash, and the kids playing Mother May I barefooted on the St Augustine grass, I see myself with a long, tall, frosty glass of iced coffee -- lots of cream, lots of sugar.

And ask oldtime southerners what really chills your soul on a blisteringly hot summer day when the "air" is out, and they'll tell you it's cold buttermilk, sometimes with a hank of freshly baked bread for dippin'.

Edited by Jaymes (log)

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Perhaps the only thing better on a hot summer day than a Mountain Dew in a glass bottle would be a 6.5 ounce bottle of Coke pulled out of the barrel of ice water at the little country store down from my grandmother's farm. Those of course were also made with real sugar rather than today's high fructose corn syrup. I keep trying to find versions of the real thing in the Triangle area at passover but have not had any luck. Anybody out there been successful in finding kosher coke in N.C.?

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Anybody out there been successful in finding kosher coke in N.C.?

We have literally mega-gallons of it here during March and April in Atlanta (duh!) for Passover, as you correctly note ... I don't find the taste of that Coke so terrific and prefer the regular Coke Classic any day ...

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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Those of course were also made with real sugar rather than today's high fructose corn syrup. I keep trying to find versions of the real thing in the Triangle area at passover but have not had any luck. Anybody out there been successful in finding kosher coke in N.C.?

Even at non-passover times, we can find glass bottles of sugar Coke at Mexican bodegas. Of course, this is in NE NJ, I don't know about NC.

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I keep trying to find versions of the real thing in the Triangle area at passover but have not had any luck. Anybody out there been successful in finding kosher coke in N.C.?

It's been years since I've lived in NC, but I don't recall ever seeing kosher-for-Passover Coke down there. However, with the big influx of Hispanics into North Carolina in recent years, and the concomitant rise in the presence of Mexican delis and restaurants and grocery stores (a friend who lives in Pittsboro reports that there are now Hispanic video stores, groceries and restaurants in town), I'm betting that it might not be too hard to find Mexican-bottled Coca-Cola, which is also made with cane sugar. Might be worth a try.

enrevanche <http://enrevanche.blogspot.com>

Greenwich Village, NYC

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

- Mark Twain

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the half lemonade half ice tea mixture called half and half by some or an Arnold Palmer by others.

Then there was the time I had lunch at Chili's - corner of 42nd and 8th in NYC (not my choice but we were in a hurry and my coworkers selected it). I told the young tatooed, pierced semi-Goth waiter that I wanted half unsweetened iced tea and half lemonade. He gleefully informed me: "Oh - I know that drink - it's called a Robert Palmer!".

Coke is THE southern beverage. It is so Southern that it is generally used as the word for all soft drinks.

I ran into this on occasion when I tended bar part time here in Yankee country and found it confusing. If the word Coke designates all soft drinks.... how do you order when you want something other than Coke? (or are we to believe that in the South no one drinks anything but Coke when opting for soft drinks?)

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I ran into this on occasion when I tended bar part time here in Yankee country and found it confusing. If the word Coke designates all soft drinks.... how do you order when you want something other than Coke? (or are we to believe that in the South no one drinks anything but Coke when opting for soft drinks?)

The conversation works like this:

Customer: "I believe I'll take a coke"

Bartender: " What kind?"

Customer: " How about one of those Dr Peppers?"

See? Simple. :laugh::raz:

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Gotta mention....

DIXIE Beer!

Dixie Beer comments

Although I have yet to taste the stuff, I must admit, in all honesty, that my appetite is whetted to try it!

Comments here made me curious as to the taste and range from "I can't imagine having boiled crawfish with anything else. The juniper aftertaste contrasts well with the spicyness of the crawfish or any other spicy food", "better beer than the German beers", to "I love it!', to "smells like vomit" ... quite a range of opinions!! :laugh:

still pondering "the juniper aftertaste" comment ... :hmmm:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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