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 :->

The margarita is the most popular cocktail in the USA.  I believe that it wouldn’t be popular if it was made like this.  While this may be the ‘real’ way to make a margarita, the reason people like common margaritas are because they are watered down.

It is considered a ‘girly drink’ for a reason.  I dont think a drink with a 5 to 1 alcohol to filler ratio would be considered a girly drink.  Most people dont like the taste of alcohol, and I think people dont like the taste of spirits, regardless of the quality or alcohol content either.  Thats why they make mix drinks.  Otherwise there would be non-alcoholic tequila flavored soda and such.  I have tried the 3:2:1 ratio and the IBA 7:4:3 ratio, and I found both undrinkable.  Its just too strong for me and most people.

That being said, i also want to say that just because I like a weak drink, doesn’t mean it has to be ‘filled’ with inferior ingredients like ‘sour mix’.  For example when I make a margarita I use 2 oz tequila, 1 1/3 oz triple sec, 2 1/3 oz lime juice, 1 1/3 oz lemon juice, and 1 1/3 oz simple syrup.  So its the same amount of alcohol, just spread out to make it less unpleasant and more thirst quenching.  Its similar to what you would get in any restaurant without the crap bar mix.

And I can understand why a customer would get upset at ordering a margarita and getting a drink that is almost pure liquor.

Darren,
You raise some good issues here.

One of which is “nothing is written in stone”. Gary Regan regularly reminds me of this when I start pontificating a tad too much on the “right’ way to make a cocktail. As it just so happens, he is also the one who “enlightened” me to the 3:2:1 ratio for the Margarita once when I was trying to determine the “right” recipe.

It’s perfectly fine for folks to like “weak” drinks, as well as drinks with a different “balance” to them. Each of us has a slightly different flavor “pattern” which we gravitate towards.

That said, I think that there is something to appreciate about having names “mean” something. The “traditional/classic” Margarita consists of tequila, lime juice, and Cointreau. Ratios of those ingredients can vary a tad, but there is always more tequila, then either of the other ingredients independently. And the key objective is to find the right “balance” of those ingredients so that it is not to sour, and not too sweet. When I order a Margarita at a quality bar, this is almost exactly what I will get every time. If I order a Margarita at a two-bit mexican joint, I’ll get something that tastes nothing like it, but more like a “lemonade, with a slight kick”.

Which one is a Margarita? Can they both be? The cheap “commercial sour mix” version of the Margarita I liken to ordering a Caesar Salad, and getting a wedge of Iceburg lettuce with garlic mayonnaise on it. Sure, it might be a fine “salad”, but can you call it a Caesar Salad? What if your first experiences with Caesar Salad were with this iceburg variation? What if that’s the one you prefer? What if that’s the way everybody made it in the town you grew up in (perhaps because they were the iceburg captal of the world)?

And it’s timely for you to raise this issue as well because we just started the “Saturated on Sazeracs” set of episodes. When I first visited New Orlenas, I made it a point to try a Sazerac at every bar I went to just so I could see how they made “real” Sazeracs down in it’s birthplace. Almost to a one, the drink that came back was WAY too sweet, and far, far, sweeter than I know this cocktail would have been made. The reason is quite simple, kids coming off of Bourbon street, wander into a bar and try a Sazerac, and are slapped across the face with alcohol unrestrained by sugar or fruit juices. Bartenders soon learn that to prevent drinks from coming back, they need to “sweeten it up” to make it more approachable to this inexperienced crowd. Thus destroying the drink for those of us who liked it fine just the way it was.

Who’s right? The alcohol adverse who wants a drink with the alcohol safely hidden, or the alcohol experienced who appreciates the characteristics that alcohol brings to the drink?

In my mind, a “cocktail” is a drink which “celebrates” the spirit, which means that it properly positions the spirit within the rest of the ingredients so that you can taste it, and appreciate it.

...at least that is the way it is written on my stones.

-Robert

This discussion reminds me of a quote from David Wondrich’s “Imbibe!”

“In short, any bourbon or rye aged between four and fifteen years and bottled at 90 proof or above will work just fine (anything at lower proof would have generated adverse comment and, most likely, shooting).”

You mention in the video clip that Gold tequilas have artificial colors and flavors. I knew about the addition of caramel color, but the artificial flavors thing was new to me, so I ran a question about it past the folks at Cuervo, since theirs is the best-selling gold tequila. I thought you and your viewers might be interested in their response. Here it is:

“There are NO artificial flavors in any Jose Cuervo products.
Caramel coloring is added as in most other spirits (rum, whiskey, tequila, brandy, etc)

Not only does the CRT allow it but also the regulatory liquor boards in the US and abroad as this common practice is used to standarize the color and not the flavor of the product.

Let me know if you need further clarification. Glad to answer!”

Dan,

I perhaps should have been more specific, and detailed that “caramel coloring” that is added to “gold” tequila imparts not just a color, but a often noticeable flavor as well.

Details can be found here:
http://www.caramel.com/a-156-296-Flavor-Analysis-of-Caramel-Color.aspx

So it’s not that an artificial color and an artificial flavor are added, but that an “artificial” ingredient is added which acts both a coloring and slight flavoring agent.

Hope that clear it up.

-Robert