It’s almost summer, so chances are that someone will soon be offering you a margarita, or asking you for one. Here’s how to make sure it’s a good one:
1) Use silver tequila, dammit, SILVER! Blanco! As Sammy (Mr. Cabo Wabo) Hagar once said to me, “With reposado, you’re introducing wood (from the barrel) into your margarita, and who wants that?”
2) And while we’re at it, use good silver tequila. It may sound counter-intuitive, but if you must shoot the stuff straight, reserve your cheapest tequila for that. You won’t remember the taste anyway. For a cocktail, you want quality ingredients.
3) Fresh lime juice, not packaged mix or powdered lime-flavoured crap. It takes no time at all to squeeze the juice out of a lime – even less if you use one of these – and makes all the difference in the glass.
4) Fruit for flavour is fine. Ice in the blender is fine. But don’t lose the taste of the tequila because of either.
5) When salting the rim, salt only half so the drinker can choose to taste the salt or not, and shake out the glass before you fill it so that you’re not literally salting the drink.
I like to add a 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid to balance out the flavor of margaritas and other that have a citrus component. This works particularly well if you want to enhance the flavor of drinks you order out at a bar.