Cinco de Mayo wasn’t too long ago, and I celebrated by getting my house ‘child-proof’ for my Niece, but I was able to get some Margaritas and some nachos together. I use an adaptation of my brother’s recipe for margaritas, and honestly – I really enjoy it. Probably more of a cocktail than a traditional margarita, but still delicious. Mexican Martini perhaps?

I start by making 2 cups of simple syrup – everyone has their own recipe…  For margarita simple syrup, I’ll cut up a lime and half an orange and squeeze/toss the peels into 1.5 cups water, then use brown sugar and liberal amounts of honey to get the sweetness up. (honey is better for you than white sugar..  I AM on a diet afterall) I let everything simmer for a half hour, then chill it by swirling the pot around in a bigger pot of ice water.

From there, I follow this recipe – building into a shaker:

• Half a lime cut into 4 same-size wedges (all 4 wedges go in)
• Half an orange cut into 4 same size wedges – but only use 1 wedge.. (so, an 8th of an orange, in wedge format)
• 1 small jigger of simple syrup
• 2 large jiggers of tequilla (my brother would sub 1 small triplesec and 1 small cointrau for 1 of these. I aint got the cash for buying all those thangs..)
• pinch of Kosher salt (another adaptation of mine)

At that point, I get my muddler out and aggressively muddle everything in the shaker – the goal is to extract the oils from the peels of the fruit, which takes more effort than just getting the juice out. Usually the point that you think you’re done, is the half way point – keep going. It’s worth it. I drop 3 regular ice cubes in the shaker and shake vigorously until my hands are super cold!

Then I get a rocks glass out, and drop a huge cube in it. I strain the shaken ingredients into it – shaking the shaker while I do it. I shake it to make sure that the pulp from the fruit doesn’t create a blockage. I also do it to get some of that pulp into the drink – to make it known that you’re not drinking some pre-mixed bullshit.

I top the drink off with lime flavored club soda until it fizzes on top. From there, I give it a quick stir it with a swizzle spoon, then garnish with a paper-thin slice of lime and enjoy!  You can salt the rim if you want, but the pinch of salt in the mix makes it’s presence known. You could also flame a peel on the rim if you want to get fancy, but there really are no extra peels because you want all that oil in the drink!

It’s much lower on calories than a normal margarita – but gets you shitted up just the same. Hope you try it, hope you love it.

Enjoy with Nachos!