Peach-Basil Margarita

 

One of our favorite chefs is Rick Bayless, his Mexican Everyday cookbook is often a go to in our kitchen, and we even made a special trip to Chicago once to eat in the Frontera Grill where the food did not disappoint but his cocktails blew us away. So it was a no brainer that his new book Frontera: Margaritas, Guacamole and Snacks found its way into our hands. The drinks require a little more preparation so I must remind myself to read it on Tuesday, shop for it on Wednesday and start preparing for it on Thursday to make the drink on Friday. Too much work?

This week, with the abundant supply of peaches and willingness for getting more involved in putting a cocktail together I made the Peach-Basil Margarita. We only had white peaches left (hence the pinky color) but I highly recommend you use yellow peaches - they add so much more flavor.

 

Basil salt (5-7 basil leaves chopped up small with the salt for the rim)

1 lime wedge

2 fresh basil leaves

1 1/2 oz 100% blue agave tequila

3/4 oz fresh lime juice

1/2 oz triple sec

1 oz peach puree (blend ripe peaches in blender with a little sugar until really smooth)

1/2 - 3/4 oz basil syrup (simple syrup with basil)

 



Wet rim of glass with lime wedge and dip in the basil salt.
Muddle the basil leaves and the end of cocktail shaker and then add in all the other ingredients with ice. Shake and strain into salted glass.

This went down really well! Make sure you make enough puree for a second!

Margarita 102

The last thing you need is another margarita recipe especially so late in the week of cinco de mayo but we realized that for all the cocktails here we have never actually featured one with tequila. Shock! Horror! Pick yourself off the floor because we actually love tequila and himself specializes in margaritas. We’re purists at heart – 100% agave tequila, freshly squeezed lime juice and triple sec in a 4:4:1 ratio with a bunch of crushed ice. 

What we have done to make it uniquely ours though are two things – the first is a salted foam topping. At Christmas I got a molecular mixology kit which has resulted mostly in disappointment (and a lot of washing up) but it did leave us one surprise – a salty foam made with lecithin and in a 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration kind of way we found the salted foam made the perfect topping for a margarita instead of the salted rim. And it looks good.

  

The second thing we do is add half a habanero chili as garnish straight into the drink (if you were very daring you might rub the rim with it) and it infuses the beverage as you sip it. By the time you get to the end it makes your lips buzz and your taste buds sing.

 

This last part is the best bit!

Tom's Medley

 

Tom knows only a smattering of lines from a few songs and strings them together in a fashion all his own. It gets a sing-song going and takes the party up a notch. We call it “Tom’s Medley’.  He visited us recently and I knew I had to have a cocktail with this name; and I worked with the guidelines of it having Jack Daniels (his favorite tipple) and a smattering of a few other libations so I started with many a barman’s nightmare - the Long Island Ice Tea.

This is what we had. And then we had another one. Doesn’t look pretty but neither did we after a few more…

1 oz Jack Daniels bourbon

¼ oz gin

¼ oz vodka

¼ oz white rum

¼ oz triple sec

¼ oz fresh lime juice

¼ oz orange juice

Splash of cola

Sangria

For me, the perfect sangria is a refreshing fruity beverage that you can sip for hours over lunch under the hot Spanish sun and when you get up you fall over. With this in mind (and consulting many Spaniards on it over the years), this is how I make sangria:

A bottle of full bodied red wine -Spanish obviously preferable

A glass of brandy – again let’s stick with a Spanish coñac

A glass of triple sec

A whole lotta (but not too much) orange juice

Slices of fruit – whatever is handy

Lots of ice

Mix together with thirsty friends (wearing cool shirts!), food on the grill, a dry evening and kids now old enough to occupy themselves in the pool and you get a successful evening - though no-one fell over when they got up from the table.