Margaritas, Made From Scratch

I have had a long and affectionate relationship with the margarita.  Give me a tangy, salt rimmed glass filled with a good homemade marg on a hot summer day, and I am one very happy girl!  Hello old friend.  My relationship with my husband actually started over a batch of homemade watermelon margaritas one Sunday afternoon almost twelve years ago.  It was a good omen and the rest was history.  

Since this is the inaugural week of the blog, I thought cocktails were in order.  I wanted to go with a classic, although my recipe includes sugar in the mix. True margarita purists would object to the use of any sugar.

So throw out the store bought mixes (although I will confess to you in hushed tones that I use them, too : ) and I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.  Feel free to tweak the recipe.  Cheers!

Recipe after the jump.

Margarita Mix


2 cups organic sugar*
2 cups distilled water
3 cups freshly squeezed lime juice**
1/2 tsp. finely grated lime zest


Combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar has dissolved.  Turn off the heat and allow syrup to cool completely.  Once the syrup has cooled, combine with lime juice in a pitcher and add the lime zest.


* Organic Sugar: When you make your simple syrup with organic sugar, it will have more of a golden color than it would if you had used white table sugar.  That is normal.  Don't be alarmed.


** Limes: It is impossible to say for sure how many limes you will need.  As a general rule, you will need 24 limes for 3 cups of juice, but have extras on hand.  You limes might not be juicy and you need lime rounds to garnish the glasses, too.


*****

Margarita


1/2 cup margarita mix
1 1/2 oz. good quality white tequila (I use Leguas Blanco.)
3/4 oz. Cointreau
Lime, sliced into rounds
Extra lime zest for garnish
Sea Salt*
Ice


Pour sea salt onto small plate.  Rub rim of glass with a lime slice.  Dip rim of glass into salt to lightly coat.  Fill glass about 3/4 full with ice.  Add margarita mix, tequila and cointreau to glass.  Stir.  Sprinkle the top of the margarita with a bit of lime zest to let your friends know how super-duper-awesome you are for making your margs from scratch! Now drink and enjoy.


* Sea Salt: For this margarita, I used a high quality gray sea salt, but I switch up my salts all the time.  My general rule though is to choose any sea salt - the briny ocean flavor will complement the fresh lime - that is course enough to have some texture but not so course that you feel like you are chewing rocks.