Make your own pickled tea
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The two ingredients you need for a weird and refreshing beverage. Photo: Ryan Deto/Axios
With Picklesburgh over, Turner's Pickled Iced Tea is unavailable again, so we made our own.
The intrigue: The beverage mixed two of Pittsburgh's favorite flavors into a combination that should be enjoyed year-round: sugary sweet iced tea and briny pickles.
Context: I sampled Turner's Pickled Iced Tea at Picklesburgh, and I was parched enough to really enjoy it in the sun, but I drank another bottle later in the week at home and decided it was just a bit too briny.
How it works: I combined 4 ounces of Turner's lemon-flavored iced tea ($1.50 for a quart) with varying amounts of pickle juice from a jar of Pittsburgh Pickle Company's PGH Style pickle chips ($7.99).
- I strained the seeds and peppercorns out of the pickle juice before mixing into a glass of tea with one ice cube.
- The original recipe combines lemon-flavored tea with Pittsburgh Pickle's Pickle Elixir, but I used pickle juice from jarred pickles instead since they're more widely available at grocers.
The results: A mixture of 1 part pickle juice to 24 parts tea — aka 1 teaspoon to ½ cup — was best.
- The concoction retained its tea flavor, though noticeably less lemony, and added a faint but refreshing pickle bite.
- The brine wasn't overpowering, and just made the tea more refreshing.
Pro tip: Drink it directly after mixing. I stored some in the fridge pre-mixed and drank a while later and it tasted brinier.
The other side: A 1-to-12 pickle-tea mixture — 2 teaspoons to ½ cup tea — is just too briny even for a pickle fan like me. Pickle flavor hits your nose even before you drink and then overpowers each sip. This ratio was closest to the tea sold at Picklesburgh.
- A 1-to-48 pickle-tea mixture — ½ teaspoon to ½ cup tea — wasn't pickly enough and mostly just tasted like a regular Turner's.
The bottom brine: I love Turner's tea, but it's a bit too sweet for my liking. Adding just a bit of pickle brine enhances it by cutting the sweetness.
- If adding pickle juice to sweet drinks is good enough for Dua Lipa, it's good enough for me.