Latest / Into The Barchive / The Margarita — America’s Favorite Cocktail
Transcript
- ITB: Welcome the Bar-Kyve, where the past comes alive. Forgotten drinks will revive. ⁓ we thrive. Sip the tails, let them jive. Welcome to the Bar-Kyve. Welcome in Bar-Kyve-us to today's episode, The Margarita. Yeah, a few cocktails have crossed borders, languages, and decades quite like the margarita. Ubiquitous yet misunderstood, it's a slushy machine staple and a craft cocktail darling. A drink that lives comfortably in Tex-Mex restaurants, dive bars, craft cocktail bars, and chain restaurants. So the question I wrote down here was, how did a simple combination of tequila, lime, orange liqueur become one of the most ordered cocktails in America. Yeah, not just one of the the most ordered cocktail in America. In today's episode, we're going to dive into that. Absolutely. But before we do, I say let's get shaking and blending. For our first cocktail, we have the classic margarita. This cocktail is gonna use that sweet and sour mix that you get from the grocery store. We're using fresh lime juice in today's cocktail. We'll build it in the tin. We'll start with an ounce and a half of blue agave tequila. Make sure that if you're not wanting that hangover the next day, stay away from those mixed those unless you're a seasoned veteran and even then use caution. Ounce and a half. of our tequila. We're now going to use a half ounce of an orange liqueur. ⁓ Some individuals may be using triple sec. Remember the orange liqueur brings the actual orange flavor through. So for us, we're using Guantaro today. Our half ounce. Next, three quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. Our next ingredient, bringing some sweetness that may not come from all from that quandro. We're going to use, I'm not going to go as sweet. Go with a quarter ounce of agave syrup. If you want it a little sweeter, bump that up to about a half ounce. But for today, I just want a little bit of sweetness. So a quarter ounce of agave syrup. And the next ingredient, some of you are probably gonna be new to, it's drops of saline. So water that we've used and added some salt to it. So instead of now doing like a salt rim, I'm actually just going to put it into the cocktail itself. So a couple of drops, one, two, three, I'm gonna go four today. And just like you would season your food, seasoning a cocktail, salt makes it pop. Opens it up a little bit. Into our tin, we're going to put some ice. And now we shake. At this time, if you chose, you could do a party pour. Party pour is where you just open the tin, straight to the glass. But I wanted to be a little bit classier. It is the classic margarita. Let's put some ice, fresh ice, into our glass. And now strain. And for this one, we garnish with a lime wedge. The garnish game actually has some benefits to it. If you were served a wheel, the wheel is there mainly for looks, but if you're served a wedge, much like with a taco, it's there to add citrus. If you need more citrus, you can squeeze it. But for right now, until I taste it, I won't know. We'll just garnish and decide a little bit later. The classic margarita. Cheers. For our second margarita, we're going to make a frozen margarita. Probably the version that a lot of people were introduced to the margarita in. You know, more typical of chain restaurants and those Tex-Mex places. So, we're going to start with an ounce and a half of our Blanco Tequila. Again, use that 100 % Agave Tequila whenever we're working with our margaritas. Now... One big change is we're upping the amount of Cointreau. So we're doing a whole ounce of Cointreau. This is partly because is when you're making a frozen cocktail, you need more sweetness and sugar because if you don't have it, it will taste thin and watery. So this is for a textural reason. So an ounce of Cointreau, I'm going to take an ounce. of our freshly squeezed lime juice. and add that to our blender cup. From there, we're going to add a quarter ounce of freshly squeezed orange juice. So it's going to amp up some of those flavors and accent from the Cointreau. Add those. And then finally, we're going to do a half ounce of our agave nectar, just again to help with texture along the way. And one of the other things with the frozen drinks is that it can mute flavors if there's not enough sugar in there. So this is not the great option if you're trying to do like a skinny margarita. You want it on the rocks like Tim had. Now, one of the key tricks in a frozen cocktail people have is how much ice to put in because they put ice in their blender and then they're like it's either way too much for their glass or way too little. So the trick is, is take the glass of choice. And so I decided to be a little cheeky and get the, you know, cactus kind of classic style margarita glass, that bubble glass. And you just want to add and essentially fill your chosen vessel, your glass with pebble ice. And pebble ice is important in a frozen drink because it's going to blend up more quickly. Like if you use larger refrigerator ice, it's going to take longer in the blender. It's going to be inconsistent texture. You'll find like bigger chunks of ice. So if you use the pebble or nugget ice, like you would buy at Sonic or if you had like an opal nugget ice maker, this is what you want to do. So then I take from my glass and put it in my blender container and I've just got a single serve blender here. So I'm gonna cap that on. You could do this like in a full scale Blendtec, Vitamex, something like that as well. But this is just easier here in the studio to demonstrate with a single serve container and then essentially blend until smooth. So that's about 15 seconds in this blender. It counts up when you do it. Then take off your blending lid. Make sure we shake off all that wonderful excess and that it gets in our cup. Bring our glass back out and then just pour it in. And then occasionally use, oh, there we go. Nice. and just trying to get all those last little bits out. And then we can kind of just shake it down a little. And then I'm going to add the lime wedge as well, just in case we need to adjust the acidity. But as you can see, the trick of the pebble ice filling the glass beforehand and you have a perfectly portioned frozen margarita. Cheers. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context. What's the origins of this margarita? Well, we kind of covered some of the prehistory of the margarita way back in episode four when we discussed the tequila daisy. Yes. So remember, what is the Spanish word for daisy? Margarita. Bingo. Okay. So, you know, they're really At least half a dozen different origin stories for the margarina. None of them are really without problems. And the combination of tequila, triple sac, lime juice is first documented in 1937 in London under the name Picador, which is kind of a tequila version of the sidecar. Okay, makes sense. The sidecar switching out the cognac or brandy and adding a tequila. tequila. Yeah, I can see it. And swapping the lemonade for lime. Okay. So that's one theory. In 1939 at New York City's Cotton Club, Charlie Conley had a drink on the menu called the tequila sour, which had a salt rim on the cocktail glass. Okay. So maybe that's the origins of the salt rim. Yeah. Okay. And then earlier during Prohibition, Henry Madden, who owned the turf bar in Tijuana, claimed to have invented the drink when the city was flooded with thirsty Americans during Prohibition. So that's the story that I think most of us know of that version of where the margarita came about. Yeah, essentially, he grabbed a bottle of tequila instead of a bottle of brandy when making a daisy, and then it became super popular and people were coming from far and wide. to enjoy that drink and the turf bar really promoted itself as the home of the tequila daisy. Now these are all hearsay story, story, story. I'm pretty sure the next thing you're gonna tell me though is publication matters. Yeah, and I mean, and a lot of those stories are. built in the U.S. Right. Yeah. There was another kind of legend of like a Mexican bartender making a cocktail for his girlfriend Margarita. OK. Because she liked salt in her drink. But to your question, the first published mention of the cocktail with the Margarita name does not appear until 1953 in a California newspaper where columnists reported drinking Margarita's on a vacation in Ensenada. This is 20 plus years after some of those first states you just mentioned. Absolutely. Okay. So again, sometimes drinks, they don't have a singular inventor. They emerge over time. And so you see the building blocks of the margarita emerge over time. And this 1953 margarita had tequila, Cointreau and lemon juice. Now, There may be some confusion here because the word limon, L-I-M-O-N is the Spanish word for lime and lemon. Yep. So maybe some confusion. Yeah. Kind of where we get that sour mix when bartenders use that ready-made whatever thing there, an equal part of lemon juice, lime juice, and some simple syrup to balance that out. make our own sour mix if we wanted, but I mean, There are several cocktails where that limon has gotten us into some interesting predicaments. Not bad. Sometimes even great. Yeah. So again, it's likely not a single inventor, just more evolution than invention. Then let's talk about the popularity of the margarita. We mentioned before we went to making the cocktail that it is the the most popular cocktail in America. The Not one of the the most. So let's talk about that popularity. Well, the margarita really takes off in the 1960s as Mexican restaurants begin spreading throughout the United States. Americans are looking for more culinary variation. When we think about like ethnic cuisine, a lot of times Mexican restaurants are the earliest forms of like ethnic cuisine in a given city. ⁓ I know living sometimes in more rural areas, like you might have that chain fast food burger joint, and then the other type of restaurant you're likely to have early on, a Mexican restaurant. that introduces people to the margarita and tequila more broadly. From there, in 1964, the Tiki legend Trader Vic opened a chain of Mexican restaurants called Señor Pico's. And there they introduced the signature bubble glass or margarita glass. Okay. Okay. So now we have gone from it being served in maybe a regular rocks or even a high ball or whatever kind of glass is something that looks sexy. There's a visual appeal to this. The Vic flair, if we could call it that. ⁓ absolutely. And then the next major revolution in the popularity of the margarita comes in 1971 when Mariano Martinez added a soft serve ice cream machine at his Dallas restaurant and introduced the frozen margarita. Man, it's now jumped from this accidental, let's call it that accidental mix to now something that is ready-made, it is there, put under a machine, it's ready to distribute. Yeah, and let me say this, Martinez, what he did wasn't so much invent the idea of a frozen margarita, people had been blending them like one at a time or small batches at a time. What he did was solve a logistical problem. As now, it was just ⁓ essentially a slushing machine where you pulled a handle and it dispensed. ⁓ Perfectly textured frozen margarita and so you could serve up frozen margaritas quickly and in large quantities in fact And this is a really interesting story to think about how historically significant this is Martinez's original frozen margarita machine that soft serve machine that he repurposed and reengineered it is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of American History. is in the History Museum. Absolutely. In Washington DC, you can go visit and see the very first frozen margarita machine. you seen it? ⁓ you bet I have. Of course you have. I should not have asked. Then we have this classic margarita of just lime. Where did it become this vessel for fruit flavors as well? Well, The frozen margarita in many ways is well suited to the age of like adding different fruit flavors, strawberry, watermelon, raspberry. ⁓ And they unfortunately, this is also the 1970s and 1980s, the dark ages of cocktails using more artificial ingredients, not like true fruit purees, things like that. In fact, tequila was seldom the focus of some of these frozen margaritas to the point where one New York City operator was caught using grain alcohol like Everclear instead of tequila in his frozen margaritas. He was just throwing some sugar and fruits at it and covering it up, hoping people would not notice and just get boozy. Absolutely. Again, the margarita suffers a decline in the 70s. They're moving away from 100 % agave tequila. So using the mixtos. And so a mixto has to have 51 % agave distillate and the rest can be cane based distillates, grain based distillates. But it's not that clear 100 % agave. We won't necessarily dive. into some of the legal battles of the tequila industry that's going on at this point in time. But there are several major brands that are currently under some kind of investigation, if not being penalized for stating that they have 100 % Lulagave and they are definitely not anywhere near those numbers, correct? Yes. And a lot of times when people are like, ooh, tequila, me and tequila had a fight in college, right? It's because they were drinking cheap mixed stowed tequila that has some other not pleasant things in it. And so you have cheap mixed stowed tequila. You would have cheap, low proof triple sec again, artificial, lots of sugar. And then you've mentioned it already, the artificial sour mix, high fructose corn syrup. It's the mixture of all those weird additives and just non natural things that those are the ones compounding leading to the bad hangover or the yucky feeling you had the next day. Yeah. And one of the things is that some of those early margaritas were served up in a coop. Yep. Like the tequila daisy, the pico door, things like that. But more and more people serve them on the rocks. And even in like these bubble margarita glasses, you know, this is 16 ounces and you pour a lot of this cheap tequila and it's not because there's more booze in it. It's just more and more sugar. Okay. We've gone from this bad era, but it makes a comeback. It had to have made a comeback because it's prevalence now. Walk me through that change. in the 1980s, one of the first steps in kind of the revitalization of a more authentic margarita comes with the introduction of the Cadillac margarita. ⁓ we're talking like Grand Marnier now. Exactly. So instead of Blanco tequila or a silver tequila or certainly a Mixto, you're adding Añejo tequila. tequila that's been in barrel at least one year and up to three years. And then as you've alluded to, you still may have the triple sec, but then you float some Grand Marnier on top. Yeah. So now we've got that age orange or actually what? It's Brandy base, right? Yeah. So you got some age distillate in there. So aged, you've got an aged distillate going as the base being the Añejo and now aged distillate as the floater. and they make a nice married pair. Yeah, very rich. Now in 1990, ⁓ Julio Bermejo of Tommy's Mexican restaurant in San Francisco introduced a new margarita that kind of undid a lot of the damage. And although his margarita was still on the rocks, it ditched the artificial sour mix ⁓ where, you know, During that era, the closest you would get to a lime and the old bastardized margaritas was like the lime sitting on the edge of the glass. So no more sour mix, fresh lime juice, got rid of the mixed dough tequilas and put in 100 % agave tequila. And then interestingly enough, instead of Cointreau, Grand Marnier or another high quality orange liqueur, he just added agave nectar. It's the base three things in that cocktail. Then you have your tequila, agave, you have your agave nectar, agave, and then your citrus, which would have been your lime. Yeah. And so that gives you the Tommy, the Tommy's margarita. And I'm sure we'll talk about and do a deeper dive in a later episode. But, you know, since that time, the margarita has become a canvas for experimentation. ⁓ In the cocktail Renaissance, bartenders riff on the structure with mezcal margaritas, spicy chili margaritas, fruit variations, but not using artificial purees, but using more natural fruit ingredients like prickly pear. And yet this formula, the original template is remarkably resilient. Yeah. We have a buddy that I think if we were to do a tequila, lime, and then a jalapeno pineapple without agave nectar. I think that would be right up his alley. Yeah. Now let's talk about the structure then. We were talking about how bartenders are getting creative and substituting in and out, but to be able to substitute, you have to have the foundation. So let's talk about the foundation, that structure of the margarita. Tequila. Yeah. I mean, the big rule as we've kept talking about is 100 % agave at a minimum. Although there's been a lot of battles and the regulatory agency in Mexico has fought against additive free labeling. ⁓ Trying to find tequilas that contain fewer additives will oftentimes maybe lead to cleaner flavors. But in a margarita, you could go blanco. un-aged or has only been aged up to like 59 days or less. Yep. Or maybe reposado kind of getting some of those subtle notes from barrel aging. That's from 60 days to just shy of a year. Okay. So again, it depends on what you want in your margarita. But again, at a minimum. 100 % agave tequila. Avoid the mixtures. Let's go to the sweetener then. Actually, let's talk about the orange liqueur part of the sweetener. ⁓ Triple seconding what? Quantra Curacao? Yeah. So here again, quality matters. Avoid the cheap, lower proof. ⁓ Anything in a plastic bottle? Plastic bottles are bad in this, well in most cocktails, bottles are bad. So ⁓ you could use a Cointreau. That's typically when we talk about the gold standard of like a high quality triple sec where it's clear, a neutral spirit base that's been richly flavored with oranges. Cointreau is a gold standard. There are other ⁓ great spirit makers like Combié, Naranja from Mexico makes a great orange liqueur. ⁓ The other option is you could go more of a Curacao, which has a Brandy base or an Age Spirit base. You could even use like a Petite Shrub, which uses a Rum Agricole base. So there are options there. But again, whatever orange liqueur you're using, probably something that's 30 % ABV or higher. ⁓ You mentioned that shrub based, we have some family members that like to use, is it called Salerno? Yeah, like ⁓ it's essentially Cointreau, but blood oranges instead of more typical oranges. The citrus fresh is best, right? Always. So lime juice, fresh lime juice, if not use a super juice. Okay. Yep. And then last. The sweetener. Yeah. So in the traditional recipe, like a traditional daisy style cocktail, was spirit, your orange liqueur or your modifier and your citrus. with the modern palette, that may be a little too tart or dry. So oftentimes just that little bit of sweetener like how like that quarter ounce of Demerara syrup in my sidecar. that little bit of agave nectar helps round out the cocktail. ⁓ Instead of that straightforward, you know, acidity, we'd bring sweetness to the party. Yeah. And here with the margarita going agave nectar rather than simple syrup, because while the simple syrup will add sweetness, it's pretty neutral. Otherwise, the agave nectar is going to amplify the agave from the tequila. And then let's talk about the garnish game on this one. So sometimes a salt rims, sometimes not a salt rim. Like neither of us did salt rims. I put saline solution in mine. ⁓ And then the lime wedge, which we both made reference to as it's there for flavoring the cocktail. Like mine could use a little bit more citrus in this one. So I squeezed because depending on the time of year, the acidity that comes from your fresh juice is different. Yeah. Well, and so Let's tackle the salt first. OK, it's not just like for the garnish or whatever. It's a flavor enhancer. It can soften bitterness. It can amplify the sweetness. Again, what salt does if you add salt in the right amount is it makes whatever you're adding the salt to taste more like itself. Yes. So, I mean, again, you can go too far and then. laying into salty territory, which you don't want to do. I would also say, like if you're going to do a salt rim on your margarita, maybe just a half rim and not like where you take the cup and then you dunk it straight in and you're getting salt, not just on the exterior rim of the glass, but the interior as well. Just take a piece of citrus, rub it around maybe part of your rim and then roll it in a plate that has salt on it and there's your salt rim. Yeah. So not every time that I'm going into my drink now, do I have salt covered? I can turn it and I have no salt over here, but maybe I do want a little bit and I can come back to the side. Yeah, makes sense. And then like you mentioned earlier, as you were making the classic margarita, this garnish intentional. Yes. And one thing I would advise, don't, if there is a wedge on your cocktail, whether it's a margarita or something else, don't immediately squeeze taste at first. This is a flavor enhancer. Like, you know, I'm enjoying my frozen margarita kind of as is, but let's say later in the cocktail, I feel like, you know, As it dilutes some, it's getting a little sweet. I can squeeze the slime wedge in it and get that acidity back. For the conclusion, the margarita. It was a simple design. Yeah, it's a daisy. And? What? And it's evolving organically. and it's kind of this unique connection between Mexico and the United States, right? You've got Mexican ingredients like tequila and some of those traditions, but as they've migrated across the border with Tex-Mex restaurants and then the frozen drink machines, tequila marketing, you know, it's become hugely popular and fortunately the margarita survived the dark ages of the cocktail with pre-made mixes and artificial ingredients. And as we've stated several times today, it stands as the most ordered cocktail in America. And arguably the most recognizable tequila drink in the entire world. I know we're a few a week a week or so behind ⁓ Cinco de Mayo. Intentionally, the cosmopolitan did hit on the seventh, so we wanted to make sure we got those dates correct, but It was important for us to do this, not to just ride the train, but maybe you had a crappy margarita, or maybe we could tell you how to make a better one, or maybe you had a great one and you wanted to know the history of it. So that was the purpose of today's episode, which is actually going to help us out for our next. But before we get into that, please, as you're watching or listening right now, like, subscribe on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Tag us, tell a friend, help us get our numbers up a little bit and also send some comments. We're getting some good feedback. It's helping us make some adjustments as we go through these episodes. So continue to send those in either via one of those pages or you can email us at podcast at into the bar archive.com. then let's talk about the next episode. Well, if the margarita is America's favorite cocktail. The question is, what do what do people in Mexico drink with tequila? Palomas. Absolutely. So next week on Into the Bar Archive, we cross the border to explore Mexico's most popular tequila cocktail, the Paloma. Tequila, grapefruit, the story of carbonation, culture and national taste. Until next time. Keep drinking through the past with us on Into the Barge.