Branch From The Classics: MARGARITA

Branch From The Classics with Bitters

February 16 2020

Rachel Davidson | @rachelpaiige

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Branch From The Classics

A great way to polish and expand your repertoire of knowledge is to brush up on classic cocktails and think of ways to put your own spin on it!

Classic recipes are a good place to look for help when you need somewhere to start developing your own creations.

Below you can see how I changed a classic margarita recipe into a complex and interesting experience!

The Classic Margarita:

2 oz tequila

1 oz. fresh citrus juice (lime, grapefruit, lemon, orange, blood orange)

½ oz. orange liqueur

½ oz. simple syrup

garnish: anything you want, match the citrus

tahin hibiscus margarita | purple te-kill-ya

Rim rocks or margarita glass with purple hibiscus sugar salt or salt rim

2 oz. hibiscus infused tequila*

1 oz. lime juice

½ oz. orange liqueur (Cointreau, triple sec, or Grand-Marnier)

½ oz. homemade jalapeno simple

garnish: fresh jalapeno slice and edible flower

*This one is easy!! You can make hibiscus infused tequila by soaking room temperature tequila with dried hibiscus flowers for 2-3 hours. Any longer, it gets way too bitter and becomes unusable.

Or you can wait for an hour before the party to add the flower to the tequila so your guests can see the INFUSION too! :D

scorching pineapple margarita | pina, peno & tahin

Rim rocks or margarita glass with tahin

2 oz. tequila

1 oz. lime juice

½ oz. orange liqueur (Cointreau, triple sec, or Grand-Marnier)

½ oz. homemade jalapeno pineapple simple

garnish: pineapple leaf and Mexican candy if you can get ahold of it

*Add lots of tahin into the mixture when shaking in tin for the scorch

DIRECTIONS

Sometime before hand:

Choose your ice. Margaritas need good ice.

2 hours beforehand:

◦ Wash your tequila with hibiscus

◦ Chill your glasses

◦ Prep ice, garnishes, and citrus wedges

Made to order:

1. Measure each ingredient using a jigger into a shaker tin

2. Take a citrus wedge and line the rim of the glass (rocks or margarita) with it

3. Flip the glass and cover the rim with salt/sugar-salt

4. Fill the glass with fresh ice

5. Fill the other tin with ice

6. INFUSE by shaking vigorously until very cold

7. Taste it and see if it needs adjusting

8. Strain into the glass

9. Finally, garnish using your tweezers.

I love both of these cocktails because they have so much personality! All you need are some jalapenos to use in both recipes, a pineapple, dried hibiscus flowers, and edible flowers.

If you don’t want or can’t find edible flowers, just leave them off! ;) If you need help making syrups, here’s an article to reference!

If you want to, buy some MX candy online. It probably won't last til the party, but justtttt saying! NOTHING LIKE IT!

It's smart to keep your cocktail recipes saved some place. To start, try highball app. They've got a drink builder that's totally customizable. My complaint is the amount of options for garnish is slim, but it's a great app to use to create cards to share - like I am in this post!!

Stay tuned for more Branching From The Classics!

As always, mahalo nui loa for reading!! -Rachel @rachelpaiige

INFUSE | a cocktail blog