Lyfting Me Up

It’s not that I am “anti-sugar”, I can still be very tempted by the pastry rack at Starbucks. However, I do my best to stay far away from refined sugar, which is both a discipline of 23 years of Type 2 diabetes, and a desire to maintain a healthy body weight. For the last few days I have been visiting in the South.

I am always confused when I order iced tea and I am asked “Do you want sweet tea?” If I wanted sugar in my tea I would put it in. More than once I ordered Iced Tea and was served ‘Sweet Tea’. I have tried not to make a scene as I realize this is not Colorado. Yesterday on my drive from Tennessee to Louisville, Kentucky, we stopped at a Burger King. They have a great vegan burger which works on the road. That, combined with an iced tea, makes a decent meal. The iced tea was self serve. My choices were “sweet tea” or 13 different selections of sugared tea from a machine. I asked the young girl behind the counter if they had just “regular iced tea” and she pointed to the sweet tea canister. I said, “That is sweet tea”. “I know— that is all we serve”.

I paid for water in a self serve cup… and yes I pouted. I am a big fan of the “Arnold Palmer” tea with light lemonade. I love telling people how the “Arnold Palmer” became the preferred summer drink even around the world. It was the the 1962 US Open at Cherry Hills golf course in Denver. The story goes that Arnie, who played a magnificent tournament, would come in and sit at the bar and order an iced tea with light lemonade. Supposedly the snooty bar tender refused to make it. Someone evidently clued the bartender in that he best serve the very affable Arnold Palmer. Soon, others thought they would try this concoction, and its fame spread. It became the “Arnold Palmer”.

I was at a bar in London a few years ago, and being the former drinker that I am, I said, “I will take an Arnold Palmer”. “Sure enough” said the bartender, and I was served the perfect drink. Two thirds tea, one third lemonade. Of course, I needed to tell him of the history of this perfect use of tea and lemonade. He was a great audience. “I knew that Arnie was a great golfer, but I had no idea how he got credit for something so splendid”.

Sweet tea is only one thing— sweet, it is not tea.

Onward and Upward,

Mark