It’s summer, so it’s time for margaritas. I’ve been to two restaurants this week and I’m surprised at all the margarita choices, always served on the rocks, with premium tequila and sold at premium prices. Is this a recent trend? Admittedly, I don’t drink much tequila, so my knowledge is limited to Jose Cuervo, my former usual choice for margaritas and Patron for shots.
Imo its just an appeal to snobbery aimed at improving the bottom line. In most margaritas you can’t tell the difference.
Disclaimer: I’ve never been fond of tequila, and I haven’t had a Margarita in years.
The Margarita is a very simple cocktail without a lot of masking flavors: just tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice. Provided you’re talking about a grown-up drink — straight up or on the rocks, not blended into a frothy sweet icy milkshake — how could it not be improved by using premium tequila? And Cointreau instead of Triple Sec? And fresh lime instead of some bottled swill?
The Margarita is just a tequila version of the gin Gimlet and the rum Daiquiri and the Whiskey Sour, any of which I would enjoy more if made with top-shelf hooch.
Oh yeah…it IS a fairly recent trend. I started eating Mexican food when I moved to NYC in the early ‘80s, and everyone drank those liquor slushees to dull their tastebuds against the forthcoming dog’s dinner that would arrive all mooshed together on the platter (in those days, there were about 17 actual Mexicans living in the five boroughs).
As the first good Mex restaurants opened in the late ‘80s, you were offered a choice of “Margarita” and “Good Margarita,” which cost a couple bucks more and included better booze.
The 1990s influx of Mexicans to Sunset Park in Brooklyn led to today’s great taquerias, superb taco trucks and burrito joints, and dozens of upscale restaurants. These are the ones that introduced the sliding scale of quality cocktails.
I saw it starting in the 90s at quality Mexican restaurants that were carrying the top quality tequilas. They’ll make a margarita with just top shelf tequila and fresh lime juice in a salt rimmed glass. This is a real drink not some party drink. Of course they’ll all offer the low grade margarita slush where you can’t tell the quality of the tequila. You could substitute some vodka and sugar and no one would notice.
More important than the premium ingredients are whether the bar uses a mix, IMO. That said, margaritas made with the absolute cheapest tequila and triple sec will taste like ass that no amount of lime juice and simple syrup can overcome.
Oh, yeah. Any bartender you catch making your cocktail with a mix should be legally allowed to be shot on sight.
By that I mean a commercial mix…it’s acceptable for a skilled barkeep to premix his personal recipe of tomato juice/V-8/Clamato with horseradish, Worcestershire, citrus juice, celery salt, hot sauce, whatever, into a Bloody Mary mix.
On weekend mornings, you gotta be able to keep those Bloodys coming strong and fast.
Camareno tequila, fresh squeezed lime, and simple syrup. I know there’s supposed to be an orange liqueur in there but I really dislike Triple Sec. Hm, curacao… And I don’t want it on ice. I want it in a shaker until the shaker starts to sweat and then poured into a chilled glass with salt on the rim.
You pretty much can’t go wrong with gold tequila regardless of brand.
As long as you’re using a spirit that you’d contemplate drinking neat you’ll be fine. Moving into stratospheric pricing and vintage tequila is not going move the needle much after that low bar is cleared.
Most important of all is fresh lime juice. Any kind of “mix” and you are basically making a kids drink in my mind.
That said, high-end tequila should be sipped solo to appreciate. There’s nothing like a flight of uber-high-end tequilas. But Cuervo et al is bottled for use in mixed drinks.
I’m with everyone else. IMO there’s really no drink that can’t be improved by premium spirits; if you can’t taste the booze, you’re making them wrong. It’s a complete myth that one wastes good booze by putting it in cocktails (unless, like I said, you’re making them wrong).
Related story: a few years ago, Mr. Athena and I were perusing one of our cocktail books, and came across a recipe for a Sidecar. It’s basically cognac, lemon juice, and orange liqueur. We decided we HAD to have one of those, but lo and behold, the only cognac in the house was a $100+ bottle one of us had received as a gift. It was almost gone. “What the hell,” we say, and make the drinks with the dregs of that bottle.
Seriously, it was one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had. The cognac came right through, and even now we occasionally make sidecars with Really Good Cognac. Yum!
Anyone here growing their own heirloom strain of agave and doing home cooking/distillation?
I believe that Mexico protects their agave like Great Britain protects the crown jewels and anyone trying to farm agave outside of Mexico will be dealt with by elite secret Mexican ninjas.
Sure you can. The only difference between gold and silver tequilas most of the time is color. That said…
stepping up the quality of the other ingredients will matter more than upping the quality of the tequila, AS LONG AS you are using 100% agave tequila to begin with. If you are starting with something else there is no use talking about it.
There is also a point of rapidly diminishing returns on upping your tequila game. Margaritas need to be made with blanco tequila. There are limits as to how good it can get by its very nature. Don’t be silly.
Can’t remember where I read it, but a Texas entrepreneur was trying to get permission to produce US tequila. Without permission, they wouldn’t be able to call it tequila. Never followed up; the article was a few years old.
Two parts tequila, one part Cointreau, one part fresh squeezed lime juice. No place for crappy tequila to hide. A crappy sweetened margarita mix instead of the lime juice can mask really cheap tequila, but the drink will taste crappy.
I use a mid-shelf tequila (Herradura silver). No point going any higher quality than that. There are many brands at that level.
I disagree, as I think gold tequila tastes better in a margarita.
Betcha $20 a double-blind taste test will prove you wrong. The only difference between silver and gold tequilas is that the gold has caramel coloring added to it, and maybe some grain alcohol in the cheap ones.