Two Excellent Tequila Cocktails

Long time no post. And even less frequent posting to come, I'm afraid. But I haven't given up yet! The other day I had a bunch of bitter oranges (above) lying around so I I made a tequila invention of mine I'd forgotten how good it is. In fact I have two tequila cocktail recipes to share after the jump, both mexicanizaciones of classic cocktails.



Bitter Orange Margarita
Some of you faithful readers may know that I am a fan of bitters and have made my own on occasion, leading to a certain small yet nonetheless outsized fame (I'll be featured in the summer 2010 issue of Edible Brooklyn, by the way—will post here when it's out.). One by-product of gathering bitter orange peel for making orange bitters is a lot of juice. Bitter orange juice is used for marinading meat in the Carribean, for example the simple and tasty Mayan pork chop preparation, poc chuc (pork chops or steaks marinaded with bitter orange juice, salt and pepper and not much more--unlike the recipes I'm finding online. It's also mixed with recado de achiote to make the marinade for the sublime cochinita pibil.
I've also found that it makes an excellent substitution for lime in a margarita. In fact, I'll make a stand and say that I like it as much if not more. Give it a try.


3 oz of tequila blanco (silver)
2 oz bitter orange juice
1 oz Cointreau
dash of orange bitters (optional)

Shake with ice and serve up or on the rocks, salted rim optional. I hadn't thought of a good garnish to go with this--bitter orange peel is pretty ruddy-looking--but I grabbed a spearmint sprig from our front stoop just so the photo wouldn't look too dull. Turns out it's a good choice, the little hint of mint complements the margarita nicely.

(BTW I suppose you can't mexicanize a Mexican cocktail. What this is is a yucatanización, ¡sí señor!)

Manjatitlán
This is a straight adaptation of a Manhattan, hence the name (I also like Manjatan). It's a simple switcheroo of tequila for rye but the result is a completely different drink. The quality and kind of tequila makes a big difference here. A reposado (gold) will be very good but I find it works even with a cheap white tequila like Viuda de Romero.


3 oz. tequila blanco
1 oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes orange or angostura bitters

Shake with ice and serve up.
Read more!

Some Favorite Cocktails: The Sidecar

I made some new friends recently and had them over for drinks for the first time. I didn't know much about them but I knew exactly which cocktail to make for them: the Sidecar. It's the perfect cocktail when you want to make something fancy but you're not sure what kind of drinkers your friends are (of course you're assuming you're friends are drinkers; if not I guess you can have a double for yourself). The Sidecar is sweet (but not too sweet) and lemony enough to appeal to most palates but the the cognac (or cheap brandy...) makes it sharp and complex enough to keep it interesting. In this sense it's actually quite similar to a well-made Margarita.

When I was living in Chicago briefly, in the fall of 1997, Jessica and I went to the opening of a new bar (name and location since forgotten) that was one of my first encounters with the classic cocktail revival. In celebration of the new establishment they were serving free Sidecars and their own very tasty take on a Gimlet (which maybe I'll describe in a later post). Both were made with fresh citrus and served in cocktail glasses laced with confectioner's sugar. That's more sweet than I tend to like things these days but at the time it was a revelation and the evening as a while was one of the key events that set me on the path to being the cocktail-obsessive I am today.

Making a Sidecar is easy. My version is something like:

2 oz cognac (or decent but cheaper brandy... I use Raynal's sometimes)
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/2-3/4 oz Cointreau

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist. (Confectioner sugar rim optional but fun once in a while.)
Incidentally this is the same ratio I use for a Margarita, obviously replacing cognac with tequila blanco.

If I haven't already written it elsewhere, I think the key to good "sweet" cocktails is to underdo it a bit with the sugary liqueurs like Cointreau. Read more!

La Perdida cocktail

In the spring of 2005 Jessica held a release party for her graphic novel, La Perdida. Her father hosted a party for her and his wife asked me to create a Perdida-themed cocktail for them to serve. The obvious choice would have been to do a margarita type of thing but since this was a special occasion taking place in an apartment on the Upper West Side, I decided to go for something classier. The first thing that came to mind was to do a champagne cocktail and I quickly settled on a variation on one of Jessica's favorites, the French 75 (this is the closest to the version I usually make; I've never tried it with orange bitters but that of course sounds interesting). Kathleen printed up cocktail napkins with the recipe printed on it so I don't even need to type it up!


The party was a hit and everyone got really drunk. Classy. Read more!