Review: Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka

As I was at the grocery store recently, I happened to find myself in the liquor aisle. At the time, I was looking for Everclear, but that is a matter for another blog post.
I did not find the Everclear, but what I did find was a number of Sweet Tea Vodkas, which piqued my curiosity enough that I decided to buy one. There were a number of choices, but I settled on Firefly brand Sweet Tea Vodka, for two reasons: the first should be obvious; the second was the combination of name and graphics. They evoked in me a memory of a time long past when my brother, my father, and I would go out in the backyard and catch fireflies in a mason jar (yes, one with holes in the lid) and bring them over for my little sister to see.

The bottle recommended that I pour a glass of half spring water, half vodka, with a lemon twist. I took this into consideration and started with a tall glass with about a quarter vodka, tap water, ice, and no lemon twist (I prefer limes personally); this had a nice taste of sweet tea to it, but not quite enough, so I poured in a bit more and tasted perfection. It tasted just like the sweet teas I grew up with; as Dolly Parton pointed out in Steel Magnolias, Sweet Tea is the House Wine of the South.

I have imbibed said concoction a few more times, and what little is left of the bottle is currently sitting in my freezer. I will definitely be buying more. If you grew up in the South or have ever enjoyed a nice cool glass of sweet tea, I would highly recommend this. A quick google reveals that I’m not the only one.

Now, whenever I make an alcoholic beverage that I talk with Jon about, I give a special consideration to the “bite”, that is the taste of the alcohol in the beverage, something Jon (and most people) dislike. This is one beverage I can easily make for Jon, though as he didn’t grow up down south and is more of a hot tea kind of person, I doubt this would be his cup of tea (look, sometimes a pun is like T-Ball: the only way to lose is to not swing).

Lastly, a quick word about the company. They use twitter and have a decently designed company website (warning: flash content); their store however does not (no link because it goes to an IP address).