The Friday Tipple: Make Mine a (Skinny) Margarita

It’s Labor Day weekend and, after a long sweaty summer, some of us are ready for a margarita. It’s that most classic of summertime beverages, thirst-quenching on that last hot day we get to spend by the pool or at the beach before the onset of autumn activities. However, we also want to keep our svelte summer figures in shape, so that means making our margaritas “skinny”, à la Bethenny Frankel. And, honestly, once you make a really fresh margarita (which is actually what a “skinny” margarita is in reality), it’s almost impossible to drink that bottled mixer ever again. Hold on to your sombrero — you’re about to become a margarita snob.

If you paid attention to our post earlier this week, then you may have already made your own version of the Last Gasp of Summer Liqueur; we infused triple sec with peaches and hot peppers in preparation for today’s Tipple, because, frankly, we knew we were going to need a drink. You can use regular triple sec, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau also, so don’t despair if you didn’t make your own infusion, although we encourage you to try it out sometime — the peaches and peppers give a nice little spicy-sweet kick that feels just right on a hot day at the end of summer.

Basically, a “skinny” margarita uses fresh lime juice (we find that it takes about 4 limes per drink — it’s worth the work), light agave nectar (easily found in most grocery stores these days, in the sugar and honey section), silver (clear) tequila, the triple sec or other liqueur, and a little club soda. It will take a few sips to get used to it, because it is not cloyingly sweet like a typical margarita made with sweet-and-sour mix, but you will soon love its refreshing light flavor and turn your nose up at the other stuff. It’s also far lower in calories than a standard margarita (150 calories vs. 550 calories, by some estimates), so maybe we can have two… or perhaps three. It’s been a long week. Cheers!

Make Mine a (Skinny) Margarita

1/3 cup fresh lime juice (usually about 4 or 5 limes)

2 ounces silver (clear) tequila

1 ounce Last Gasp of Summer Liqueur, triple sec, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau

Light agave syrup to taste (start with 1 tablespoon per glass)

Club soda

Place first 4 ingredients in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake vigorously, taste to check for sweetness and adjust if necessary. Pour it all into a glass, then top with up to 1/4 cup of club soda.

Last Gasp of Summer Liqueur

In the past week, the Good Booze kitchen has made it through both an earthquake and a hurricane. Since bad things tend to come in threes, we think the last thing to threaten us will be… the end of summer. Labor Day is on the way and, with it, the end of juicy fresh raspberries, peaches, tomatoes, and cantaloupes. Don’t get us wrong, we’re looking forward to apples, pears, and pumpkins, but in this bittersweet time of year, we are holding on to summer with a vengeance even as it slips through our fingers.

The hurricane blew down a few plants in the old vegetable plot, leaving us with an assortment of peppers, both hot and sweet, that need to be consumed right away. Add to that the enormous piles of almost-overripe peaches being sold at rock-bottom prices at our local farmer’s market, and we knew what we needed to do: make an infusion for this Friday’s Tipple.

A lot of cocktail recipes call for really beautiful liqueurs; we often covet them at the local liquor emporium, where they beckon to us in their glistening bottles clad in designer labels. But making your own infusions gives you the chance to be really creative while using seasonal products — and it’s much less expensive. We still buy the occasional artisanal liqueur — in fact, we’re seeking out Catoctin Creek’s Pearousia right now, with autumn cocktails in mind — but, for now, we’re sealing our summer memories in a jar.

Last Gasp of Summer Liqueur

There are no rules to this, make what you like. Use any fruit, vegetable, or herb combination and use with brandy, vodka, gin, bourbon, or whatever. Here’s what we did, because we wanted to make something to specifically complement this Friday’s Tipple recipe:

One ripe peach, sliced

One hot Italian pepper, split

1 tablespoon lavender honey

Triple Sec

Place peach slices and whole pepper into a 12-ounce mason jar; cover with triple sec and let sit in a cool place for a few days, or even a few weeks. Add to cocktails to taste.

The Friday Tipple: Raspberry Vinegar Rickey

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the Good Booze kitchen, you might be expecting us to break out the rum and passionfruit to make that classic New Orleans cocktail consumed by the gallon up and down Bourbon Street. However, we’ve decided to adopt a rawther British stiff upper lip and stockpiled gin instead.

The Gin Rickey was recently named as the official cocktail of Washington, DC; this classic combination of gin, lime juice, and club soda is native to DC, created in 1893 by Colonel Joe Rickey and bartender George Williamson at Rickey’s bar, Shoomaker’s, just a stone’s throw from the White House. DC drinks guru Derek Brown likes to call the Rickey “air conditioning in a glass”, as it is particularly refreshing in the midst of our swampy summers, but we think it’s pretty tasty in any weather.

This Friday’s Tipple, the Raspberry Vinegar Rickey, takes advantage of the abundance of late-summer fruit that we used in our recent Roaring Twenties Raspberry Vinegar. Raspberry pairs beautifully with gin, its tart sweetness combining with the gin’s juniper berry essence to create a cool pine forest freshness. We caramelized some lime wheels as a garnish, which add a slightly burnt sugar undertone to counter the acidity of the vinegar.

Mix up a Rickey anytime you’re caught in the middle of a natural disaster. It somehow makes it seem much more… civilized. Pip-pip!

Raspberry Vinegar Rickey

Gin (try Juniper Green Organic or, here in the DC area, Catoctin Creek Watershed)

Roaring Twenties Raspberry Vinegar (didn’t make it yet? we have an alternative below)

Club soda

Lime wheels

Sugar

To make the caramelized limes: Dredge the lime wheels in sugar. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat; when the pan is hot, cook the lime wheels on each side until just lightly golden. They will be a little sticky; set aside to cool (they can also be refrigerated at this point for a day or two).

To assemble the drink: Place the caramelized lime wheel in the bottom of in a tall glass or a large wine glass and lightly muddle the fleshy center, then remove and set aside. Add one tablespoon of Raspberry Vinegar, 1.5 ounces of gin, and stir. Add several ice cubes and top with club soda. Stir well, then top with the reserved lime wheel.

No Raspberry Vinegar? Shame on you. Luckily, we are steeped in American ingenuity, just like old Colonel Rickey, and have a plan. Take four or five fresh raspberries, a 1/2 teaspoon of red wine vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar and muddle together in the bottom of the glass (after you’ve muddled the lime wheel). Let the sugar dissolve, then complete the rest of the above recipe.

Roaring Twenties Raspberry Vinegar

“…the average woman considers she has lunched luxuriously if she swallows a couple of macaroons, half a chocolate eclair, and a raspberry vinegar…”

- Very Good, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse

Being only familiar with raspberry vinegar as something we make to mix with olive oil for a nice summer salad, we at Good Booze have puzzled over the above quote from a favorite Roaring Twenties short story collection for years. Why would a woman have raspberry vinegar with her eclair? Doesn’t sound appetizing, let alone luxurious, at all, but perhaps prohibition had rattled P.G. Wodehouse to the extent that he thought a glass of vinegar was preferable to bathtub gin.

But all was revealed recently when we read about the line of fruit drinking vinegars now available on the retail market by Pok Pok Tom, a popular Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon. A quick search on Google revealed a New York Times article about — wait for it — raspberry vinegar that is sweetened and boiled into a syrup. Add just a teaspoon or so to a glass of club soda and what you have is an incredibly refreshing drink that is both sweet and acidic, with the faintest hint of vinegar to help you digest all those macaroons.

We see a lot of cocktail potential in this charming reminder of a bygone era — so keep your eye out for this Friday’s Tipple. You’ve got plenty of time to make your own drinking vinegar before then!

Roaring Twenties Raspberry Vinegar

Drinking vinegar recipes are largely the same across the board, just varying the types of fruit and vinegar, and sometimes using honey instead of sugar. Here’s our version, which yielded almost 4 cups total.

2 16-ounce bottles of red wine vinegar

3 cups fresh raspberries

5 cups sugar

Put the vinegar and raspberries in a large bowl, cover, and let sit for up to three days (or even four, to deepen the flavor). Uncover and mash the raspberries into the vinegar, then strain the liquid into a saucepan. Add the sugar and bring just to a boil, then turn the heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes, let cool, and bottle. Most recipes say it will keep refrigerated for three months, but we doubt it will last that long, simply because we will slurp it down too quickly.

Seriously wicked pickled ginger syrup

So, we’re a little obsessed with infused simple syrups right now in the Good Booze kitchen. We acknowledge that an intervention may need to be staged at some point, but until then, just look the other way. A little sugar and water never hurt anybody.

You can walk into pretty much any restaurant these days and find a list of fancy cocktails of which at least one will, inevitably, feature a ginger simple syrup. So, we set out to make a standard ginger syrup until suddenly inspired by the giant bowl of fruit and vinegar currently marinating on the kitchen counter (keep an eye out for that recipe soon), which sent us running to the Asian foods section of the local grocery store in search of a jar of pickled sushi ginger.

The resulting syrup is luscious and peppery, with a distinct tang of vinegar. It will take a star turn in The Friday Tipple this week, but, more importantly, it would be amazing drizzled over creamy vanilla ice cream, as a spicy counterpoint to a rich flourless chocolate torte, or added to club soda for a homemade pickled ginger beer. And we’re pretty sure a spoonful of it might just cure the common cold.

Wicked Pickled Ginger Syrup

We used a raw sugar/cane sugar combination with this recipe, to help deepen the flavor and color. For the pickled sushi ginger, we used a piquant organic variety by The Ginger People, not the dyed-pink stuff that you usually see piled up next to the wasabi on your sushi plate. And don’t throw out the ginger pieces after you’ve strained the syrup — it’s candied pickled ginger gold! We put ours in the fridge and think they make a delicious addition to Greek yogurt and ice cream.

1 cup raw turbinado sugar

1 cup cane sugar

2 cups water

1 jar (6.7 ounces) pickled sushi ginger in vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a rolling simmer, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to low and allow to reduce for about 30 minutes, until you get a slightly thickened syrup. Cool in saucepan, then strain into a jar or squeeze bottle. Kept refrigerated, it should last at least three months.