Happy Taco Tuesday and Cinco de Mayo! Today I’m excited to bring you the second installment of my Bowtiful Bartender series! Since today is a double whammy and we’re celebrating both Cinco de Mayo and Taco Tuesday, I figured that now would be the perfect time to mix up a classic drink – a margarita!
I have so many special, random memories associated with margaritas from over the last few years…
When I was at Loyola for undergrad, my friends and I would go to a restaurant near campus called Flaco’s Tacos almost every Monday (after we’d turned 21) for their $3 Margarita Monday special! SO many laughs and random meet-ups with classmates and friends took place on Margarita Mondays.
Post-grad memories associated with margaritas are all over the board…
- post-work happy hours at Cantina Laredo with my friend Margot and multiple orders of Ahi Tuna Tacos AKA “margs with Marg”
- a night out while visiting Emily, one of my best friends from high school, while she lived in Boston
- weekends dancing in the West Loop with friends at Federales
- the list goes on!
For this recipe, I’m using my favorite tequila from my bar cart: Casamagna Reposado. However, any reposado tequila of your choice works for this margarita!
Another fun memory: I got this bottle last summer when I was on a press trip in Puerto Vallarta with their tourism board! While there, I stayed at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa where they have their own house brand of tequila, Casamagna! On the final night, our group did a tequila tasting and dinner with Marriot’s tequilier – which is when I learned that reposado is probably my favorite kind of tequila! (That being said, I like tequila in general, but I’ve never had any quite as good as this one!) Casamagna produces a limited number of bottles each year and it’s not currently possible to purchase it anywhere online, so I try to save this bottle for special occasions. (I need to figure out how to get Casamagna shipped to Chicago!!!) For today’s post, we’ll go ahead and crack into it!
Ingredients
2 oz. reposado tequila
1 oz. lime juice
1 oz. Cointreau
1/2 tbsp. agave syrup (I used Trader Joe’s Organic Raw Blue Agave Sweetener!)
a slice of lime
salt
a dish
How-To
- Combine the tequila, lime juice, Cointreau, and agave into a glass
- Prep your glass with a rim of salt – (This step is optional!) To add, wet the edge of your glass with the slice of lime and then dip/roll the edges of the glass on a plate covered in salt.
- Fill the cocktail shaker halfway with ice
- Pour the liquid mixture over the ice, attach the cup to the shaker and SHAKE! – Shake this one for a LONG time so it’s nice and icy!
- Strain the mixture from the shaker into your drinking glass – I like to let some of the smaller fragments of ice end up in the drink because it keeps it colder longer and adds a frozen texture even though it’s not a frozen margarita!
- Garnish with a slice of lime
- Enjoy!
I hope that you all enjoyed this installment of Bowtiful Bartender! Let me know how you like it if you try making this margarita for yourself. Cheers!
