Why the Long Island Iced Tea is actually awesome

At the recently renovated and reopened Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Marks Place, there are craft cocktails on the menu and bottles of small-batch spirits behind the bar. But the watering hole’s drink of the moment is the ultimate déclassé cliché: the Long Island Iced Tea, sprayed straight from the soda gun. “It tastes good,” says customer Claire Bertin-Lang, 32. But the Upper West Sider, who works in event planning, admits there’s a certain irony to enjoying the drink as an adult. “I remember using my fake ID to drink Long Islands at bars on Macdougal Street,” she says. “Back then I drank [the cocktail] because it had bang for the buck.” Claire Bertin-Lang enjoys a Long Island Iced Tea at...