Sorry Trunk, yes, of course you did it. I’m just posting in between working, and should have read your post better. My apologies.
Of course, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? I was just tryin’ to call more attention to your idea by stealing, I mean, re-emphasizing it. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Color me a purist, but I don’t consider a Margarita to have any added sugar, or simple syrup, or processed, sweetened lime juice.
Now you could mix up some refreshing tequila based cocktails with those, but I wouldn’t really call them a Margarita. Again, I side with Athena. I think we are talking about 2 different drinks here.
It’s like those 16oz Margaritas you get at Ruby Tequilas (insert the name of chain Tex-Mex if RT isn’t familiar) for $5.95, or that big ol’ jug of “Margarita Mix” you get at the liquor store. To me that’s like having the chef pop a frozen dinner into the microwave and call it gourmet. He can call it that, but it doesn’t mean I’m buying it.
Start out with good ingredients and you won’t need to mask anything. And you won’t drink 16oz of this stuff and walk away, either.
And I don’t mean to look down my nose at anybody who enjoys those sweet tequila cocktails, I like them on occasion.
I’m not going to color you a purist unless you show me evidence that your version of the Margarita is the “pure” one.
I don’t know either, but I’m not claiming to be a purist.
You may be able to tell the difference, but I still maintain that it’s a waste of good tequila. I suppose it’s just a clash of philosophy, but my personal drinker’s rules say that premium spirits are meant to be enjoyed on their own and are not to be degraded by using them in mixed drinks.
I don’t use good cognac in my brandy Manhattans. I don’t put tonic into my good gin…though I will allow for small amounts of vermouth. Heck, most scotch drinkers I know won’t take it any other way than neat. The same rules apply to tequila.
Perhaps it’s also the diminishing returns that prohibit me from putting the expensive stuff in my margaritas. Sure, margaritas with cheap tequila are unsatisfying. A nice mid-range tequila like Sauza Hornitos is a huge improvement though. That’s maybe a $20 bottle, compared to $12 for the cheap stuff. When you talk about putting a $40 tequila into my margarita, sure maybe I can taste some improvement. None that’s worth double my money though.
:smack: OK, I missed some of the last exchange while I was writing that. Feel free to ignore as much of it as you see fit.
I have to agree with Athena and Duke. A classic Margarita for me has always been equal thirds of tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice. No simple syrup, no sour mix, none of that sweet crap.
Personally, as much as I like margaritas, I can’t bear the thought of using a $40 or $50 per bottle premium brand in a mixed drink. Those I put aside to sip and savor. It would break my heart to do otherwise.
The only time I might use a premium liquor in a mixed drink is the gin & tonic. That’s mainly because I haven’t developed a taste for straight gin (the only spirit that I don’t like drinking straight) and because the tonic water doesn’t quite kill the underlying taste of gin as much as something acid and powerful like lime juice does.
There appear to be three possible sources for the original margarita but none of them involved anything sweet in their ingredients.
Yeah, and one of them had Cointreau and one had triple sec and lemon. And the author talks about a touch of sweetness in the first sentence but doesn’t address it further. I don’t know who that writer is, but she sounds like a TV reporter who has read the same google hits I have and doesn’t sound like someone who necessarily knows the difference between “lime juice” and “lime sour”.
I think that anything that we’re talking about can rightfully be called a margarita. Given the prevalence of sweet ones and the fuzziness of the origins, I’m reluctant to call anything the “official” margarita, though. We’re just nit-picking, though. Or at least I am.
For contrast: Even though you might call vodka, vermouth and an olive or gin, vermouth, and a pickled onion a martini, I think most would agree an “official martini” is gin, vermouth and an olive. I don’t think a “margarita” comes close to such a standard.
A “martini” with an onion is a Gibson.
If you really want to confuse your bartender, ask for a Cuba Libre without the lime.
Stranger
Fair enough.
From This Site
From This Site
As Ass For A Hat mentioned, I too use Sauza Hornitos. Just a 100% Blue Agave tequila, not any Anejo or anything that pricey, but not any rot gut, either.
Athena and I were comparing notes, and I mentioned that since the third weekend in March, my buddies and I have gone through 14 liters of Hornitos, 7 liters of Cointreau, and a few hundred limes (all juiced by me).
No, I certainly think all those drinks we’re talking about are margaritas, but the purist’s margarita should consist of the three ingredients I’ve listed. I haven’t been able to find any recipe claiming to be the original margarita that contains syrup. It seems, as close as I can tell, the original margarita consisted of 2 parts tequila, 1 part Cointreau, 1 part lime juice. I like mine with slightly different ratios, but the same ingredients.
Ass, I’ve had just about this same recipe on a multi-day river rafting trip and I have to say it’s really damned good. The setting might have had an influence on that, but still, worth trying.
We did:
one can of frozen Welches lemon lime drink concentrate.
that same can filled with tequila
one and a half cans of Tecate beer
Blended well (with a hand-crank blender)
Damn you people! I was craving a margarita since I read this thread this morning, and you forced me to go out and buy tequila and orange liquer just so I could have one! I got a mid-range one of each, I’m too poor to but a $40-$50 bottle of tequila and liquor. But not Jose Cuervo, that’s for sure.
I went with a “classical” margarita. One third each of lime juice (fresh squeezed), tequila, and orange liquor. It’s yummy!
We use Tequila Reserva 1800 Silver because it has a pretty bottle. We use blue curacao is because we did not have contreau and it is pretty in the glass with lime juice. We use half curacao and half Agavero because it seems to bring out the Agave flavor in a way that is quite nice, and it has a pretty bottle. We use kosher salt because sea salt is too complicated a flavor that IMHO doesn’t belong in this drink.
I make Manhattans with 1792 Ridgemont Reserve Small Batch Bourbon or Elijah Craig 12 year old Bourbon. I make Martinis with Tanq or Tanq Ten. I make brandy crustas with Meukow, because it has a pretty bottle.
I do reserve my Spirit of Solomon brandy and single malt scotch for drinking neat.
The sweetness is from the Cointreau.
To add more cites for the “only the three ingredients I mentioned” point:
Ted Haigh sez to use equal proportions of tequila, Cointrea, and fresh lime juice. Interestingly, though, he calls for reposado tequila.
And Dale DeGroff calls for 1.5 oz tequila, 1 oz Cointreau, and 0.75 oz fresh lime juice.
For the purists: An interesting variation (yes, I recognize the irony here) is to add a dash of angostura bitters and a dash or two of orange bitters. The two types of bitters are ingredients in the Pegu Club cocktail, which is an old-style cocktail that’s essentially a margarita made with gin instead of tequila.
I am sipping a Margarita made with 2 ounces of Tequila, 1 ounce of cointreau, and 1 ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice and a dash of salt. I am sipping it out of a salt rimmed glass and it is garnished with a slice of lime and partly filled with crushed ice. It is quite dreamy. I think I will alter my recipe offered above to replace the blue curacao with cointreau.
The formula in my copy of The Ultimate Book Of Cocktails is 1 1/2 measures silver tequila, half a measure of Cointreau, and the juice of a lime.
On the other hand, most of the margaritas I’ve consumed have been triple sec, gold tequila, and Margarita mix. Probably because I practically only drink 'ritas when I’m visiting my mother, and that’s the way she and her friends make them. Also, ~$30 bucks for a small bottle of Cointreau is just too steep for me.
To me, the real question of the Margarita is: Blended or on the rocks? I almost always order them on the rocks. For one thing, it gets done faster. For another, I know most bartenders hate futzing around with the blender. Finally, you avoid the “slurpee headache”.
We’ve had some disagreements in this thread, but I think there would be unanimity on this question. On the rocks in the true way.
Yeah, on the rocks is the way to go. Although, if it’s really a bad margarita, the blended ice kinda makes up for just plain ol’ crappy marg mix and bad tequila.
Have I mentioned the worst margarita I’ve ever had? Sprite and tequila. Really. I asked for a marg, and watched the guy make it.
If you use Squirt instead of Sprite, it helps a lot. Really. During my vacation in Mexico, they made margaritas for our tour group this way. Mainly they were trying to ply us with booze so we’d buy some crap at the gift shops that happened to be on the tour. For a “free” margarita, not all that bad though. They did squeeze some fresh lime juice into it, which probably helped a lot. Regardless, these margaritas were a lot better than the slushees that we got back at the hotel.
Actaully, on this trip to Puerto Vallarta, I picked up a couple bottles of tequila from these guys. Anyone tried it? They had a few flavored varieties that were far too sweet. Their reposado was quite tasty though. It had a nice smokey flavor. It was presented as a mom and pop tequila operation. I’m kind of curious if that’s really the case. Regardless, it’s some tasty tequilla.