I was in New York – Manhattan – Times Square yesterday when a real hankering for sweet tea hit me hard in the gullet . . . real hard.

But what is a proper southern gentleman to do when the very concept of sweet tea is so very alien to people north of – roughly Virginia?

I – myself – have been to places that purport to be “Real Down-Home Southern Cooking” up here in the up north – and when I nervously asked if they had sweet tea – they give blank stares – and shrugged shoulders – and mumbles about how there are sugar packets on the table if I needed them . . . Sugar Packets?! What am I going to do with those – dump a few into my glass of cold tea and watch as those lovely life giving crystals float their way to the bottom? I say – no sir to that.

Sometimes – in a million times – there will be a place that has this drink of choice – and they will be so bold as to charge for refills – of sweet tea – yeah – seriously – don’t waste my time – okay maybe just one more glass.

To the point of the post – McDonald’s has sweet tea – and it is a dollar – and I went to get it so that I could throw it into the trash can as Ieft – and then I took a sip – and was blown away. I was drinking sweet tea and it was good. So – so good! There was even a hint of lemon (a must add for some people) to the tea – you know why? Because there was a lemon in the – odd styrofoam cup that the drink came in . . . an actual little lemon wedge staring up at me as happy as it could be – aaaahhhhhh . . .

I suppose that I could make my own sweet tea at home to save money, have a better product and potentially a more fulfilling life – but why when it is so easy to check the schedule – get on a bus into Times Square and go to the home of northern sweet tea – McDonald’s – would I ever bother to do any of that junk?

(Next up – a probable trip to the dentist – when he tries to tell me that sweet tea isn’t as good for my teeth as I have been hearing – yeah – okay. . .)