It looks like it's getting into margarita season. Tonight at work was on the slow side, and two people ordered them in a matter of fifteen minutes. At most bars that would be commonplace; when the house specialty is elaborate rum drinks, a frequency like that makes you sit up and take notice.
One of my guests said he wanted his margarita made the old-fashioned way, with agave syrup. Where oh where did people get this idea that the original margarita was made with agave syrup? It's even used by usually reliable food authority Alton Brown in his margarita recipe (the recipe is all kinds of wrong besides the agave syrup)! The only agave in a margarita should be fermented and distilled into tequila. Agave syrup is a very recent addition to the bartenders' stock; I hadn't heard of it when I first got behind the stick way back in 2007. Then out of nowhere, here's bottles of agave syrup (usually called agave nectar to make it sound more appealing), and people claiming that the original margarita uses agave syrup to sweeten in place of triple sec. What. The. Hell.
Folks, I'm going to say something that's going to pain a lot of amateur and professional mixologists: Stop using agave nectar. Its flavor profile is about as neutral as simple syrup. At $5 for a 12-ounce bottle of it, it's a hell of a lot more expensive than plain simple syrup, and more expensive by the ounce than a standard-grade triple sec! I'll let you finish what you have behind your bar since it isn't as abhorrent as bottled margarita mix or sweet and sour (you should only use these if you wish to ruin whatever cocktail you make with them), but once you've gone through your stock, just use simple syrup when you want sweetness, and use triple sec in your margaritas. It's how people have made them for decades, and it's how they should be made.
Recipe: THE Margarita
1½ ounces tequila blanco
1 ounce triple sec
½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
Shake everything with ice cubes. Strain into a salt-rimmed cocktail glass, or strain over fresh ice cubes in a salt-rimmed rocks glass.
Frozen is not an option, even when it's blazing hot outside. All that ice gets in the way of tasting your drink. If you prefer a sweeter margarita, add a little simple syrup to taste; I find ¼ ounce does the trick. If you prefer your margarita more tart, just add a little more lime juice.
Oh, while I'm on this soapbox: The salt rim. Countless margaritas around the world have been ruined by those damned salt rimmer gizmos. You've seen them before: There's a plastic dish with a sponge soaked in (Rose's) lime juice, and another dish full of kosher salt. The bartender squishes the glass into the lime sponge, rubs the moistened rim of the glass around in the salt, and voilà, the glass's rim is salted. There's one problem with this, and it's a biggie: There's now a bunch of salt on the inside of the glass. As soon as the bartender puts the glass down, a bunch of the salt shakes loose and lands on the bottom of the glass. Then when they fill the glass, the rest of the salt comes off. The result is a drink that will be mostly salt with the first sip of a straw. Eeeeew. Let me show you the way I learned, the One True Way:
THE Way to Rim a Cocktail Glass with Salt or Sugar
Rub a piece of lemon or lime (e.g. the lime you had to cut in half to get the juice for your margarita) around the outside of your glass to lightly coat the rim with juice. Holding the glass sideways, dip the rim of the glass into a shallow dish of sugar or kosher salt, rotating the glass to cover the entire rim. Hold the glass upside down over the sink, and tap the glass a couple of times to knock loose any excess salt or sugar. Turn the glass right-side-up, and proceed with your recipe.
If you expect to use a great deal of rimmed glasses in an evening (such as for a cocktail party featuring margaritas), you can rim your glasses well in advance; the salt will stay put. Don't know whether someone wants salt on the glass or not? Easy, elegant solution: Rim only half of the glass. If you want to get fancy with your drinks and rim the glass with something novel such as shredded coconut on a piña colada, or graham cracker crumbs on a key lime pie cocktail, or maybe even tiny candies like Nerds or Pop Rocks? You'll use something close to the typical method. All you need is a shallow dish of honey, and another dish of the ingredient for the rim. Dip the rim of the glass in the honey, then into the rimming ingredient. There is a certain knack to this; too much honey gets messy fast, while not enough honey leaves you with an empty rim. And make sure the ingredient is in tiny pieces; for something like shredded coconut you might want to chop the shreds up finer with a knife or a couple of pulses in a food processor.
