Monday nights hardly scream party, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. For example, take the rain-soaked Monday we had recently. After six hours of driving on my part and a friend of mine making a major life decision, drinks were in order. And I just needed to find the football game. The crew and I wandered to Cafe Central, where we not only got control of the remote to put the game on, but also created an awesome new drink ... at least, we think we did.
With the kitchen closed and things pretty light in the bar, we set out to find a drink for the chick with us — something that was girly enough but not a total bitch drink. Flipping through the book of shots, we saw a few things we liked before asking our bartender, Joe, to morph them into something appealing.
After some trial and error, adding some elements, taking others away, taste test after taste test, the final product contained amaretto, Southern Comfort, sweet tea vodka, cranberry juice and sour mix.
Delicious. We convinced everyone coming in the door to order this thing without knowing what was in it, what it cost or anything. After positive reviews, we needed a name.
It’s kind of dick move to name a drink after ourselves. We’d been running with “the new shit” for a while, but ordering a “new shit” didn’t feel right. It had to be something Southern.
Obviously, I shot down the Dukes of Hazzard ideas, but we tried everything, even for a moment agreeing to name it after whichever quarterback won the game.
The Bears got the win, and I was cool with calling it “The Cutler,” but that lasted about a minute before a girl in a pink shirt and her cool Asian friends came up with Plaza-Midwood Tea. After nods all around and some tweaking, it was settled: “Plaza Tea” it is.
So, the next time you’re at Cafe Central, ask Joe to make you a Plaza Tea or PMT. He’ll know what you’re talking about, and you’ll thank me later
Mike McCray, a Charlotte native and North Carolina A&T grad, is a city explorer, neighborhood partier and dress code ignorer who shakes his head at DJs getting away with bad blends, girls pretending to be drunk and grown men with low tolerances for alcohol. Follow him on Twitter.
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