It's that Mardi Gras time of year, and while the snow continues to fall up here in the mountains of Colorado, we love a good celebration and can always find an excuse to give you some delicious recipes for tea beverages! (And believe it or not, one of our local ski areas really does celebrate the occasion every year in the snow.)

Down south where the beads are really flying the go-to refreshment is sweet tea, which is black tea with plenty of sugar (or sometimes prepared with simple syrup — one part water and one part sugar boiled together and cooled). We're all about indulgence (it's called Fat Tuesday for a reason, no?), but we get it if your sweet tea needs to be a little less sweet. We found this recipe for Slightly Sweet Tea from Southern Living, which you can make with organic green tea, honey, orange and lime juice.

But should you want something a bit more potent, shall we say, we've got a recipe that's a marvelous mash-up of two legendary southern refreshments: sweet tea and mint juleps! Keep this recipe on hand for the Kentucky Derby (the first weekend of May is just over two months away, after all):

Sweet Tea Mint Juleps

Ingredients