Science Of Drink

Strange creation of famous tiki-bartender Don “Beach” Beachcomber. Cocktail Waikiki Beachcomber has very classic construction - main alcohol + liqueur (sweetener) + juice (mixer). Only pineapple juice demonstrate exotic soul of this cocktail :)

Waikiki Beachcomber

30 ml gin
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml pineapple juice
Shake. Cocktail glass.

Admirable cocktail with bright exotic-candy taste.

This concoction is one of the rare case to use Bols Red Orange. Unintelligible cocktail was found on Drinksmixer - a dump of strange cocktail recipe.

Bloody Sun

20 ml gin
20 ml Bols Red Orange liqueur
10 ml Cointreau
orange juice
Shake gin, orange liqueur and cointreau. Pour into a glass filled with ice cubes and fill with orange juice. Old-Fashioned glass.

It is ordinary “tropical” drink with light, sweet and citrus taste. Nothing special.

Undoubtedly Margarita is unique cocktail. This symbol of cocktails has simple composition and unlimited tastes ability. And of course Margarita is very popular cocktail, which we can find every bar. And this make Margarita cocktail most bastardised cocktail on the world.

The story of invention of Margarita is very unclear. I know about five “inventors” at least. If you interesting by this stoty, you can find some facts here.

This post about my search of Ideal or Ultimate Margarita. I started with recipe of my first Margarita.

Margarita (Salvatore Calabrese)

30 ml premium tequila 100% agava
20 ml Cointreau
30 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with a lot of crushed ice. Strain in to cocktail glass with salt rimm.

Take your favorite metal shaker. No matter boston or cobbler shaker, I think. Usually I use my cobbler shaker shaker for my Margarita. Fill shaker on 1/2 or 2/3 (depending on volume of shaker) with crushed ice. Pour tequila, Cointreau and fresh pressed, double strained lime juice. Shake hard untill shaker frost (30 sec). Strain in cocktail glass rimmed with salt. Garnish with piece of lime (optional).

Wet glass rim with a piece of lime and gentle salt it for your perfect salt rim.

Use only best 100% agava tequila for your Margarita. Only 100% agava help us to obtain excellent results. I use tequila Leyenda de Milagro for my Ultimate Margarita.

I think that sugar syrup is no good choice for Ultimate Margarita with premium tequila. I prefer to decrease of amount of lime juice for less sour cocktail. I think that crushed ice for shake is best choice for very cold and optimal diluted cocktail.

I tested several Margaitas with different tequilas (Milagro, Jose Cuervo, Olmeca). Actually only 100% agava tequila give perfect cocktail. Ordinary tequila give us mediocre result.

You may serve Margarita straight, on the rocks and frozen. I tested this three kind of Margarita for better understanding this cocktail. For my “Margarita on the rocks” I use Jeffrey Morgentaller`s recipe:

Margarita on the rocks

40 ml tequila
20 ml Cointreau
10 ml fresh lime juice
10 ml fresh lemon juice
10 ml simple syrup
Shake. Strain on the rocks, garnish with a salr rim and lime wheel.

Actually this Margarita on the rocks is admirable cocktail. This cocktail has light, smooth and refreshing taste. The balance of sour and sweet taste is perfect!

I use common recipe of Frozen Margarita from wiki.webtender.

Frozen Margarita

60 ml tequila
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml lime juice
Shake (or blend). Serve in margarita glass, salt-rimmed. Garnish with a piece of lime.

This is very refreshing sourless cocktail. I think that one or two dash of sugar syrup is great idea for Frozen Margarita. No sense to use ultrapremium tequila with this amount of crushed ice. Ordinary good quality tequila (like a Jose Cuervo Classico or Reposado) is best choice for Frozen Margarita.

Some results of this experiments are:

1. I prefer my Ultimate Magarita from ultrapremium tequila straight, with gentle salt rim, no garnish.

2. For ordinary tequilas I prefer Margarita “on the rocks” in half-salt rimmed glass with a lime wheel.

3. Garbage in, garbage out! This rule work extremely well with Margarita.

I find some interesting information about cocktail Margarita in book The Thinking Bartender by George Sinclair, which I download from George Sinclair`s blog last year. This blog is dead now… Anybody know where is George???

I use another my 100% agava tequila - Los Arango Reposado for experiments with Ultimate Margarita ratio.

2:1:1 Margarita (Francisco “Pancho” Morales)

40 ml tequila 100% agava
20 ml Cointreau
20 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice, and then strain into chilled cocktail glass, which is rimmed with salt.

Amazing sour less Margarita with bright tequila taste. Very good ratio for premium tequila.

3:1:1 Margarita (Margaret Sames)

45 ml tequila 100% agava
15 ml Cointreau
15 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice, and then strain into a chilled champagne glass (saucer style), which is rimmed with salt.

Strong and sour less Margarita. The strength obstruct tequila taste and cocktail has crude taste.

3:2:1 Margarita (Carlos “Danny” Herrera)

45 ml tequila 100% agava
22,5 ml Cointreau
15 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice, and then strain into a chilled champagne glass (saucer style), which is rimmed with salt.

This cocktail has interesting and well-balanced less sour citrus taste. My wife like this version very much.

1:1:1 Margarita (Danny Negrete)

30 ml tequila 100% agava
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice, and then strain into a chilled champagne glass (saucer style), which is rimmed with salt.

This cocktail is not bad, but tequila taste is no bright. This ratio is not for premium tequila, as for me.

In my opinion none of the described ratio is “ultimate”. I like sour and bright Margarita as my first Margarita :) This love from first sight, I think :) The taste of Margarita in ratio 3:2:3 is almost ultimate… Very close ratio has cocktail Tequila from book Cocktails and Mixed Drinks by Anthony Hogg.

Tequila Cocktail (Anthony Hogg)

30 ml tequila 100% agava
15 ml Cointreau
30 ml fresh lime juice
Shake with ice, and then strain into chilled cocktail glass, which is rimmed with salt (optional).

Admirable cocktail! This version is very close to my favorite. Sour, refresh and bright cocktail.

I drink Margarita cocktail during 2 week but find no Ultimate Margarita except my favorite first Margarita. But I purshased several new bottle of tequila. One of them is unique Leyenda de Milagro Selected Barrel Anejo, tequila aged more then 3 years under control of Mexican government (wtf?). I decide tp prepare Ultrapremium Margarita from this tequila.

/skipped by autor, for Ultrapremium Margarita see here/

For ultimate understanding construction of Margarita Cocktail I tested Margarita with juice of lemon instead lime juice. I prepare cocktail in my favorite ratio 3:2:3. For this experiment I use one of my new tequilas - Leyenda de Milagro Reposado 100% agava.

I obtain result like comparsion Kamikaze with Balalika. Cocktail with lime juice has more bright, sharp and refreshing taste. Cocktail with lemon juice has smooth and sweet taste. My choice is lime, of course.

Oh my God! The search of Ultimate Margarita is miracle and very pleasant process! Thanks God for Margarita Cocktail!

I purshased two great hurricane glass last summer. This beautiful big glasses needed something beautiful and unusuall. First of all I found cocktail of the same name - Hurricane. And I come tiki-cocktail-lovers with Hurricane cocktail. Now I want to describe some of my favorite recipes of Hurricane Cocktail.

You may read interesting Hurricane recipe comparsion on Rick`s Kaiser Penguin blog. I want to introduce three versions of Hurricane - classical, version by Dale Degroff and unusuall Hurricane Merylin by Salvatore Calabrese.

The key ingredient of classical Hurricane is passion fruit syrup. Common I use Passion fruit Syrup by Monin.

Hurricane

50 ml light rum
50 ml dark rum
30 ml passion fruit syrup
30 ml fresh orange juice
30 ml fresh lime juice
1 tsp. grenadine
Shake. Hurricane glass. Garnish with a flag.

I use Captain Morgan Black and Old Pascas White (Barbados) for this cocktail. The drink has bright sweet taste with some bitternes of lime.

Hurricane (Dale DeGroff)

30 ml dark rum
30 ml light rum
15 ml Galliano
20 ml fresh lime juice
30 ml passion fruit syrup
45 ml fresh orange juice
45 ml pineapple juice
1 dash Angostura bitter
Shake. Hurricane glass. Garnish with tropical fruit.

This mix is one of my favorite tropical cocktail. The drink has super-smooth sweet taste with hint of vanilla and tropic candy. It is great version! Extremely delicious cocktail!

Hurricane Merylin (Salvatore Calabrese)

20 ml Pusser’s rum
20 ml Bacardi rum
10 ml canadian whisky Seagrams
10 ml Cointreau
70 ml cranberry juice
70 ml guava juice
20 ml fresh lemon juice
1-2 drops of grenadine
Shake. Hurricane. Garnish with a strawberry, mint and kiwi slice.

This Hurricane is light and smooth. The drink has very interesting and unusuall taste. I use Angostura 1919 rum and Canadian Club White Label for mix. I think I have good results. Actually I like this cocktail very much.

One more margarita on my blog. This cocktail is rare chance to use watermelon liqueur. I has one bottle of it - Marie Brizzard Watermelon no so artificial as I suppose. The taste of ripe watermelon is great sign of summer, and this cocktail is drink with great summer taste arround year.

Watermelon Margarita

30 ml silver tequila
30 ml watermelon liqueur
40 ml margarita mix
Shake witk a lot of cracked ice. Serve in cocktail or margarita glass. Garnish with piece if fruit.

Margarita mix is a mix of equal parts of fresh lemon, lime juice, Cointreau and gomme syrup.

Admirable!

In first summer day I explore Strawberry Margarita. This cocktail has delicious frutty taste and perfect balance of sweet and sour taste. This cocktail ideal for romantic june evening.

Strawberry Margarita

60 ml tequila
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml fresh lime juice
45 g fresh strawberries
Mudle strawberries with fresh lime juice. Add cracked ice and others ingredients and shake. Serve in margarita glass with salt rim. Garnish with slice of strawberries.

Excellent cocktail! For this recipe I advice to use 100% agave tequila for real “margarita” taste.

You may prepare “more” strawberry Margarita too:

Strawberry Margarita #2

60 ml silver tequila
15 ml Cointreau
15 ml strawberry liqueur
30 ml fresh lime juice
45 g fresh strawberries
Mudle strawberries with fresh lime juice. Add cracked ice and others ingredients and shake. Serve in margarita glass with salt rim. Garnish with slice of strawberries.

Admirable!

My wife ask me to prepare some interesting sour cocktail with lemon juice. We looking for recipe on my favorite CocktailDB and found this interesting recipe. The composition of gin and calvados seems so good (like one of my favorite Golden Dream).

Margaret Rose

30 ml gin
30 ml calvados
15 ml Cointreau
15 ml fresh lemon juice
1 dash grenadine
Shake. Cocktail glass.

Admirable!

Some people think that blue cocktail is not serious. It unworthy of real imbiber, but I think different :) For example, this cocktail is very serious - 2 oz of gin is no joke!

Blue Bird

60 ml gin
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml blue curacao
1-2 dash Angostura bitter
Shake. Cocktail glass, garnish with lemon twist and cherry.

It is potent aperitif with bright bitter-sweet taste.

My first 100% Agava tequila - Los Arango Reposado and my first Margarita

I have my first bottle of 100% agave tequila in my liquor cabinet. It is Los Arango Reposado (41 USD for 0,75 l bottle).

Los Arango Tequila Reposado - The name “Los Arango” is in honor of Doroteo Arango, better known to history as “Pancho Villa”, a famous revolutionary leader and one of Mexico’s great heroes. Los Arango Tequila is expertly crafted at an 18th century hacienda distillery, and is dedicated to Pancho Villa’s name and memory. The secret behind this premium Tequila is 100% agave, hand crafted, and bottled by hand.Hacienda practices old-school, artisanal methods of tequila production, including aging in barrels crafted from three kinds of oak. Los Arango is considered the ultimate example of the tequila distillers art. From www.tequila.net

The smell and taste of this tequila at room temperature (from snifter) are perfect! For sure this tequila is sip-worthy liquor. After first sip of Los Arango I decided to compare over my tequilas with this excellent tequila. The results are:

Pepe Lopez Premium Silver (24 USD 0,75 л) - very bad (vrong smell and taste);

Sierra Reposado Gold (26 USD 0,7 л) - very bad (very spirituose smell and taste);

Olmeca Blanco (25 USD 0,75 л) - not very bad, but bad (aromatic smell with little of spitituose, hard taste);

El Charro Gold & Blanco (26 USD 1,0 л) - not bad (not bad smell and taste, for this money ;) );

Jose Cuervo Blanco (37 USD 1,0 л) - good (very aromatic tequila with right taste).

Of course I tested my new tequila in cocktail. I prepare my first Margarita!

Margarita

30 ml tequila (100% agave)
30 ml fresh lime juice
20 ml Cointreau
Shake with a lot of cracked ice. Cocktail glass (or magarita, or champagne saucer) with coarse salt.

Admirable cocktail! Perfect taste of tequila with acute freshness of lime is very good for me. But I prefer to increase of amount of tequila.

I have new bottle of rum in my bar today. My new rum is Bacardi 8 - aged rum from Bacardi family. I decide to compare it with my favorite aged rum - Havana Club 7 Anos.

The results of comparsion are:

Color:

Bacardi 8 - amber-gold colour with light red tones

Havana Club 7 Anos - Deep amber color? with red tones. This rum has more intensive and deep color.

Nose:

Bacardi 8 - High aromatic, rich but little so strong flavor with sweet undertones of caramel, vanilla, chocolate;

Havana Club 7 Anos - Delicate and rich flavor with bright taste of wood. This rum has outstanding bouquet wih complex notes of fruit, vanilla, cocoa…

Taste

Bacardi 8 - The taste has light woody base, the taste are rich, crisp and full with undertones of fruit.

Havana Club 7 Anos - This rum has exellent, rich, complex taste with delicate woody base and sweet and mellow undertones of vanilla, sugarcane, caramel, fruits. The taste is so complex, rich and smotth like good cognac.

Finish and aftertaste:

Bacardi 8 - The aftertaste is not very long, sweet and rumy;

Havana Club 7 Anos - Has rich, bright and long aftertaste with bright sugarcane notes.

As tasting area for coctail using I choose the Rum Sidecar recipe.

David Wondrich advice to use an aged Cuban-style rum, such as Brugal A?ejo, Bacardi 8, or, if you can get it, Havana Club 7 (not just Cuban-style, but actually Cuban).

The classic recipe of Sidecar was investigated by me with some ex-USSR brandyes last month. And I think is very good classical recipe.

Rum Sidecar

45 ml rum
20 ml Cointreau
20 ml fresh lemon juice
Shake. Cocktail glass with sugar rim.

Exellent drink! The aged rums work well in this cocktail. Drink has perfect balance of strong, sour and sweet taste.

I like more cocktail with Havana Club 7, which has rich and compose taste. The Rum Sidecar with Bacardi 8 has more sweet and no such compose, but bright taste.

Resume: Both rums are pretty good, but for me Havana Club 7 Anos has more rich and unique flavor and taste; and it work in my Rum Sidecar more better.