Posted on April 23 2016
There is nothing more fun about my job than seeing our new merchandise arrive and all the the team members ooh and ahh about our new products until now! Being a normal busy Friday with my staff going above and beyond in their customer service, I thought they deserved a little happy hour break at 4pm. What better than a margarita taste testing for the gals in anticipation of Cinco de Mayo (and men even though most of them a beer drinkers)?
I headed out on my lunch break to our local Total Wine and picked up some tequila and an assortment of concoctions and extra fun stuff. The weekend before, my partner and I had some margaritas by the pool (because it was 74 degrees here in Florida) because hot weather just makes me crave an ice cold margarita. And I thought the office needed a cocktail to end the week!
We had decided after a busy Saturday of renovating our house (which is a complete blog on its own) to attempt making some cream cheese stuffed jalapenos on the grill with my new fancy jalapeno holder thingy-migegy as a light appetizer. And what goes with these, is of course margarita's (in my mind). I sat outside on our deck chairs and skimmed thru Pinterest and before you know it... and hour had passed, but I had come across about 100 margarita recipes.
I headed to the store to pick up a good bottle of tequila after reading a few articles http://www.thestreet.com/story/13230869/10/here-are-the-10-best-tequila-brands.html and decided to get a bottle of Don Julio.
My boyfriend is not a huge fan of margarita's but he likes the way I make them, but I decided we needed to venture past the norm and try something different. My first choice was a tequila infused pineapple shot... why start off slow, when you can be bold at home? I iced some fresh pineapple juice and then shook it up with some Don Julio for a little kickstart to our afternoon happy hour. Let's just say, it was a sweet start!
While my boyfriend prepped the jalapenos by scraping out the insides, I whipped up some cream cheese, goat cheese, red pepper and breadcrumbs to stuff inside. When we were done stuffing about 18 japalenos we put them in the fridge until the grill warmed up. Perfect timing for another concoction. I pulled some frozen mango chunks out of the freezer and dumped about 2 cups into the blender with some fresh cilantro and some agave nectar. I poured about 4 shots of Don Julio in and blended everything until it was a big slushy mess. I rimmed our plastic glassware with a combination of salt and sugar to counteract the sweetness of the drink and poured the mixture inside to enjoy out in the sun.
This was a hit and a perfect blend as we stood around the hot grill getting our jalepenos roasting. As we grilled these and some chicken for dinner, we both enjoyed the Florida sun (as hard as we work, we don't always make the most of getting outside every weekend before the weather gets unbearably hot unless you're in a swimming pool!). When our dinner was ready, we sat down to enjoy everything with a jicama salad.
I decided our third and final concoction would be a ginger beer style margarita (because I am a Moscow Mule fan and I almost always have lime and ginger beer in the house. This on ice version was absolutely brilliant and a nice twist on the standard vodka one. Here's the recipe to end the evening... http://minimalistbaker.com/5-ingredient-ginger-beer-margaritas/
Here's to everyone having a fun and safe Cinco de Mayo on May 5th!
- The Editor
