Summertime is Margarita Time!

"If life gives you limes, make margaritas."  -Jimmy Buffett

Enjoying a Homemade Margarita on the Patio

Okay, okay, it's not officially summer until June 20th BUT it has felt quite a lot like summer lately ssssoooo why not just make some margaritas and enjoy it?!  Margaritas can be enjoyed any day and any time, while gardening, after gardening, while bowling, playing croquet, throwing darts, juggling fire, you name it, it's margarita time no-matter the day / time / occasion!

Here's my favorite margarita recipe, you can tweak it however you'd like.  It's fun to add in fresh herbs / vegetables / peppers that you've grown in your very own garden to personalize it a bit.  Sometimes that turns out to be an awful choice, however you might be surprised by your choice of making a jalapeno basil margarita or any other concoctions you may come up with!

I'd definitely suggest enjoying these after a day of gardening but I'll be the first to admit that I've certainly started out some days with a margarita and instead of gardening I just wound up laying on the ground (or in the hammock) with a book.  But hey, we all need some rest and relaxation days and you won't find any judgments here!  Just do yourself a favor and don't drive after drinking these.  Seriously, don't do that!

The World's Best Margarita:

-1 Lime

-Sprinkle of Salt

-0.5 shots Agave

-1.5 shots Tequila

-1.5 shots Triple Sec

-Any fresh vegetables or herbs from your garden (optional)

Suerte Blanco is my tequila of choice for these margaritas.  I don't have a triple sec of choice (yet).  I know, Suerte isn't the cheapest Tequila at your liquor store (it's also far from the most expensive).  Look at it this way, at one of my favorite farm to table restaurants in Longmont, it's $26 for a margarita pitcher.  With a $30 bottle of tequila, I can make many, many, many pitchers of much better margaritas.  So why not save money and have fun at the same time while keeping your margaritas enjoyable?!

Step 1: Break out your best drink maker that you can shake without the drink going everywhere.  Mine happens to be a nutrition drink mixer cup that I got for FREE.  It makes a fantastic margarita shaker, who says your drink shaker has to be fancy?!

Step 2: Fill your drink maker to the brim with ice, partially shaved ice is preferred.  If you're like me and you don't have a fancy refrigerator that offers shaved ice you can get some aggression out and smash some ice cubes in a plastic bag.  I actually like this better because then you have varying sizes of ice chunks which seem to make better margaritas (in my opinion).

Step 3: Take your lime, cut it into wedges, and squeeze the juice into your shaker.  Do NOT discard the wedges (just yet), you'll need one wedge for each glass!

Step 4:  Add the Tequila, Triple Sec, Agave, and sprinkle of salt to the shaker along with any fresh vegetables or herbs you're wanting to add.

Step 5:  Shake, Shake, Shake, and then Shake some more.  Rock Lobster by the B-52s is my preferred margarita shaking song, try it out if you need some good tunes to get you shaking like a pro!  If you have never heard this song before, you're welcome.

Step 6:  Put the shaker down, get your glasses out as well as a small plate.  Pour salt on the plate, take your glass and smear lime juice on the rim of the glass with one of your pre-squeezed lime wedges (I told you to not throw those out just yet), take your lime crusted glass and coat the rim in salt via putting it upside down on the plate that has salt on it and wiggle it around.  Optional thought:  If you want to spice things up a bit, you can get experimental with this rim salt.  Instead of just plain old salt, you could add in some pepper, or cayenne, or coriander, or cumin, or taco seasoning, or all of the above.  The sky's the limit here and you might find an amazing combination that you like!

Step 7:  Fill your salted glass with cubed ice.

Step 8:  Pick that shaker back up and Shake, Shake, Shake again!!!

Step 9: Pour shaken margarita into glass, put lime wedge on rim of glass to get the complete tropical feel!

Step 10:  Enjoy!

There you have it, that's the worlds best margarita as judged by myself!  Seriously, it's fantastic and I've only gotten great feedback on my margaritas.  These are incredibly strong though and you can't taste the alcohol at all, be sure to pace yourself and be careful with them.  Once again, how about not driving after these?!  Thank you from your fellow human beings!