Lime rickeys: summer in a glass

There are many summer foods -- watermelon, corn on the cob, hot dogs -- but not many summer beverages. Iced tea, lemonade, soda pop (served, of course, in sweat-dripping bottles), all long ago lost any solely seasonal association. People drink them year-round. But for a liquid taste of summer, there's no drink quite like the lime rickey and its several variants, most notably the raspberry lime rickey.

Even if it didn't taste so good, who could resist the name? ``Lime rickey": It's a throwback to the days of cherry phosphates and drugstore soda fountains.

``I love lime rickeys," says Steve Herrell , owner of Herrell's Ice Cream , in Northampton, which has branches in Cambridge and Allston. ``I grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and my family would often go to the beaches around there -- Ocean City, Md., Atlantic City. And that's where I remember having them, on the boardwalk. You'd be all hot and sunny, and those lime rickeys are so refreshing."

A lime rickey -- simple syrup, soda water, ice, and squeezed lime quarters -- is the warm-weather equivalent of hot chocolate: a delicious drink with an appealing connotation of comfort, quaintness, and childhood.

``They totally remind me of growing up," says Steve Grossman , former Democratic National Committee chairman. Grossman favors lime rickeys in their raspberry version (substitute raspberry syrup for simple syrup). He used to order them for himself and his staff from Colleen's , an ice cream parlor in Medford, during his unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for governor, in 2002.

``I don't know whether it's generational," Grossman says. ``If you did a survey on how many people drink them now and how many used to, I'm sure the numbers are down."

That's probably true. After all, the corner drugstore is now a CVS or Brooks. But rickeys do remain popular. One sign of their continuing popularity is the existence of rickey-related items. Brigham's , which has long had raspberry lime rickeys as a mainstay of its restaurant menu, markets a raspberry lime rickey sherbet. And for a decade, Clearwater Beverage Co. , of Worcester, has made a bottled raspberry lime rickey soda that's sold under various private labels (such as that of di Mio , a Cambridge pizzeria).

``The mix with the lime gives it a different flavor [from raspberry soda]," says pizzeria owner Antonio Machado .

Rickeys proper are doing all right, too. Bill Bartley , general manager of Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage , a Harvard Square institution for four decades, says that during the summer his restaurant goes through five bushels of limes a week making rickeys.

``I'm drinking one right now," Bartley says. ``It quenches your thirst, and I'm standing at the grill, so I know about quenching thirst. Only a beer is better."

A rickey can have even more of a kick than beer. ``Usually, it's considered an alcoholic beverage," Herrell notes. ``There's a wide interpretation of what rickeys may be." Along with lemon rickeys, grape rickeys, and cherry rickeys (a New York staple in the '40s and '50s), there are gin rickeys, rum rickeys, and vodka rickeys.

The rickey began, in fact, as an alcoholic drink. That's not in dispute. What is in dispute is where and when. Many people around here think the rickey originated in this region. Certainly, it has the old-timey New England feel of, say, Moxie or frappes.

Instead, rickey appears to have originated elsewhere, late in the 19th century, though specifically where or when remains unclear. Was it in 1884, at the Democratic convention in St. Louis? Or in 1891, in Washington, D.C., at a bar called Shoomaker's (or Shoemakers )? What about 1895, at New York's St. James Hotel ?

A namesake Colonel Rickey -- who some say was English, others a Missourian -- went into a bar on a hot day in search of something wet, cold, and restorative. One account has him being served a glass of whiskey and mineral water over ice with lime juice. Another says it was bourbon, half a lime, and carbonic water over ice. A third credits gin, lime juice, and soda water.

Whatever the true story, the rickey was born and began its many mutations. ``People are making them with Sprite now," says a bemused Bartley. ``That's ridiculous!" It's even no longer just a summer drink. Bartley recalls how his father, the restaurant's founder, started making rickeys available year-round back in the '60s. ``I remember throwing out a lot of limes in January because people didn't know we had rickeys on the menu, but now they do," Bartley says. He estimates that during the winter the restaurant goes through three bushels of limes a week.

Bartley says that raspberry lime rickeys outsell plain lime rickeys 70-30 at his place. As a raspberry lime rickey man, Grossman finds nothing surprising in that ratio.

``You know, if I had stayed in the governor's race right to the end," he says, ``I figure my secret weapon would have been going on TV a week before the primary and saying, `If I become the Democratic nominee I will set up free raspberry lime rickey stands throughout the state.'

``And then if I'd won, well, you know how basketball was recently made the official state game? The raspberry lime rickey would have been the official state drink."

The actual official state drink is cranberry juice. Cranberry lime rickeys, anyone?

Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com. SWEET AND LIMEY If you've worked out perfect proportions for a lime rickey or know a place that has, go to boston.com/ae/food.