Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Make a real margarita

My favorite margarita is basically just good tequila and lime juice, slightly sweetened with a bit of salt. The packaged mixes always taste really chemically to me and it's just as easy to do it up yourself. We had a big bottle of the good stuff on hand so it was definitely time.You also need orange liquor...triple sec is fine. I used Patron Citronge. The bottle is very pretty.Before you get started, make a batch of simple syrup. This is really easy and will come in handy for all kinds of summertime drinks (mint juleps, etc) so you might as well just do it now. It is just 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. First bring the water to a boil, then stir in the sugar until it dissolves. Let it cool before using and voila: simple syrup. I only made a little bit (1/4 cup water to 1/2 cup sugar), but most often you will see people making 1 cup water to 2 cups sugar in order to have extra.Keep it in a jar in the fridge and you'll have it ready all summer long! It's also great for sweetening up iced coffee because the sugar is already dissolved. All right, let's go! Get your bar area ready--limes, salt, booze and ice. And your shaker.Squeeze a lime wedge around the rim of a glass...Smush the rim into some salt then fill the glass with ice cubes.Per drink, you need 2 shots tequila, 1 shot orange liquor, about 2 shots lime juice (I just ended up juicing the limes right into there and not really measuring all that well), and 1/2 shot simple syrup.Put it all in your shaker with some ice and shake it up for the dogs! They love it.There you go. Pour it over the ice cubes in the glass.And decorate with a lime wedge.You can mess with the proportions--maybe you like it sweeter or more tart or whatever. Phil always wants his Texas style--so you add a little orange juice in with the lime juice. Like everything else--it's flexible!And hopefully you'll never have a premixed margarita again.***new awesome update: recently we juiced 2 big oranges, 2 limes and 1 lemon, mixed it up in a pint glass and used that for the juice. This is enough for 4 margaritas and is just the right amount of sweet-tart without going into total Texas margarita territory. Use about 2 1/2 shots of this per drink.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you can find agave nectar, use a tablespoon (or so) instead of simple sugar syrup. Agave nectar goes into solution really easy and this is my "go to" sweetener for a variety of drinks (moijito, lemon drops, Mai Tai, etc).