A little sour, salty and a bit of sweet. Make the lemony-pineapply four ingredient Mexicana Margarita your new fresh margarita of choice.
Are you thirsty?
It wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally started mixing up my own fresh margaritas. The problem was having never tried fresh. Somehow, after all these years, the only margaritas I’d ever come into contact with were the syrupy, overly sweet varieties that made me pucker and move on.
Not one had a lasting impression, which lead me to believe all margaritas were created equal. Perhaps because they were all processed and either came out of some mixer machine or a premade plastic bottle from a store shelf.
I lacked inspiration.
Then my sister, the one who inspired the almost famous, The Big Sister, nudged me with her intriguing bottle of white tequila, of which her visiting friend Maggie gifted her. Maggie knows tequila and called it good tequila. This was not the tequila I had experienced in my younger days in the form of a shot washed down with a squeeze of lime and a lick of salt. The kind I swore I’d never try again. No.
This tequila had a light floral, mild scent. It was pleasant. Like the feeling I get when I nose a fine glass of wine or a bottle of good bourbon. It was smooth and mellow.
I began to change my mind. It didn’t help seeing all the margaritas on popping up on Pinterest.
When I spied the tequila on sale at the store… well, that was all the motivation I needed to reacquaint myself with a margarita. And so I did.
But then I started looking at grenadine. I’d been checking it out at the store and was dissatisfied with the ingredients. So I started looking to find out how I could make homemade.
I first started with Lisa’s Pomegranate Molasses recipe, then used Jeffery Morganthaler’s DIY Grenadine recipe to make my homemade grenadine. Both were very simple to make and only required a bit of attention while simmering on the stove. There’s plenty of pom molasses leftover to make more grenadine and to use in marinades, salad dressings or other inventive applications.
Both are sublime and worth the effort. I can’t wait to whip up my childhood favorite with the grenadine; the Shirley Temple.
The final push for sharing this Mexicali Margarita with you came from Kate at Hola Jalapeño. She asked if I would join her for Margarita Week in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. I enthusiastically said yaaaas and appreciated the opportunity to step outside of my margarita box.
Find the Margarita party on her blog. Be sure check back often as over the next week, more margarita love will be shared there. Also, follow #margaritaweek on social to stay up to date!
I’d love to hear your margarita journey. Are you a fan? What’s your favorite? Drop a link to share the margarita love!
xo
the recipe
Mexicana Margarita
Ingredients
For the Glass (optional):
- 2 tsp Kosher Salt
- 2 tsp Evaporated Cane Sugar
- 2 Slices Lemon
- Ice
For the Drink:
- 3 oz White Tequila 78g, I use Milagro
- 3 oz Pineapple Juice 90g
- 2 oz Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice 56g
- 4 tsp Grenadine* see note
Instructions
- Mix the salt and sugar in a small bowl large enough to dip the rim of the glasses with. Rim a low-ball cocktail glass with a lemon wedge, then dip into the salt mixture, shallow for a little or deep for a lot!
- Combine the tequila, pineapple and lemon juice and grenadine into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a low-ball glass filled with ice. Garnish with a lemon slice.
