The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

Margaritas based on Jose Cuervo Tradicional Reposado don’t work for me and my customers at all but apparently they work in some other restaurants… I found the Agave Restaurant in Atlanta where they use Cuervo Tradicional Reposado for
what they call Agave Reposado Margatini.
check their menu on:
http://www.agaverestaurant.com/frames/photosframe.htm

By the way, any ideas what they mean by ‘fresh lime & sour’ ?

I tried some aged tequilas in the Margarita but I agree with Robert that the silver one is possibly the best for this cocktail.

A friend of mine showed me a new edition of Harry’s Bar in Paris cocktail guide. Suprisingly the Margarita recipe
calls for lemon juice. We tried and didn’t like it.

Regards from a cocktail bar in Edinburgh

"Fresh Lime & Sour” would mean that they are using fresh lime juice -and- sour mix. In my mind the sour mix in this case is being used to add extra “volume” to the drink, without increasing the cost to the bar.

I’ve got a good friend who swears by using lemon juice instead of lime in his Margaritas, with some slight adjustments to the Cointreau, this can work out well, but I just find limes to be more appropriate.

I tried this recipe this other day and found it to be quite excellent, and as I usually avoid anything with Tequilla in it I was presently suprised.  My aversion to Tequilla comes more from the fact that I think it tastes vaguely of vinegar than any unfortunate experience with it.

Out of interest, do people ever get angry if they ask for a margarita (or daiquiri), you give them the drink as you’ve shown on this site, and they expected a frozen drink?  I ask this because I am on the younger side (22) and all the people I regularily drink with or make drinks for are of a similar age and seem to believe the only real way to make a drink is what is trendy currently (I still can’t convince half of them to actually try a proper Martini).  Do you find that desire for trendy drinks goes away with age, or will I have to deal with this for a long time?

Finally, just a general comment, I absolutely love the site and have been watching the videos since you posted the first one, I’m just a few behind now as I was busy with school and didn’t get a chance to visit the site.

Masecar,
Wow… do you open a can of worms. :->

It can often be a balancing act to identify what “trends” are evolutionary concepts, and which are devolutionary.

Personally I feel that “blended margaritas” are in the relm of two steps back as far as proper cocktail appreciation goes, mostly because they bear too much simularity to “slushiees”, and hence our “childhood” then they do to properly position adult libations.

Cocktails should not remind us of our childhood, insteadn they should advance us into adulthood.

-Robert

aloha! Along the lines of slushies....If one is eating then a slushee is horrible for the gut.  this type of drink is better for eating and more in line with true latin tequila drinking, where most often it is served neat and at ambient teperature.  Good tequila is worth tasting not hiding! Salut!

Somewhere (wish I remembered the context, sorry) I recently heard or read that Margarita is the word for “daisy” in Spanish and that the drink is the surviving south-of-the-border adaptation of a forgotten cocktail called the Daisy.

Given the Star Daisy made for me at Bourbon & Branch one time when I wanted an older drink, I believe it.

Dinah,

Yes, “Daisy” in Spanish is “Margarita”. You can go to http://translator.live.com and check this out yourself. This is just one of the stories surrounding how the drink got it’s name.

A “Daisy” would be a drink made with Spirits, Grenadine (or Raspberry syrup), and a citrus juice. Conceptually similar to a Margarita, but this style of cocktail (spirit, syrup, juice) is extremely common, with names like sour, fix, and even punch have a fairly similar pattern. One reason for this “not” to be a Daisy, is that the construction of a Daisy was usually quite specific that a red syrup was used. No idea why.

For the time being, I’m satisfied with just shrugging my shoulders and agreeing that we may never know how the Margarita actually got its name, or when.

-Robert

Let me open up another can of worms.  I blame the chain rest/bars for forcing me to reprogram my customers of the decade’s worth of shoddy bartending/ingredients they have been subjected to.

If only I had a dollar for every time a customer saddles up to our bar and orders a “top shelf” margarita, only to protest when I use anything other than Cuervo.  I usually respond with “do you want Cuervo, or do you want me to use the good stuff?”

Sadly, they have been served so many of these sour mix concoctions that upon sampling the real deal...they assume I am a novice bartender.  It’s an arduous task.

Question:
I recently attended a lecture given by Sofia Partida of Partida tequila. They are big proponents of agave nectar.  No doubt you have tried their recipe.  What are your thoughts on agave nectar and its place in the margarita?

Yes, we can blame a lot of Margarita sadness on those chain restaurants. I’ve had people write to tell me my Margarita recipe was wrong because it didn’t use sour mix, and since (insert name of famous chain restaurant here) always used sour mix in their Margaritas THAT was the right way to make it.

Agave syrup is a nice “touch” to add to a Margarita, simply because it ties back so nicely to the mother plant. Personally I love my 3-2-1 recipe, and think it is sweet enough. To add Agave to this, I’d probably have to switch to a 3-1-1-1 ratio, but that too would change the flavor.

Robert,

What is the manufacturer of the antique juicer you use?  I’d like to try and find one on Ebay.

Blair

It’s an “Ebaloy” juicer.

With all of the interest that these shows have been building in that juicer, I expect prices to go through the roof soon on ebay :->