Frozen Margaritas Anyone?

Summertime in our apartment can be pretty ruthless. We don't really have the funds to keep our apartment cool all the time. All we have is a window unit in the bedroom that we use when we're trying to sleep. Believe me, it's no fun waking up drenched in sweat.
The reason I'm telling you this is because one of the last lines of defense against the mercury expanding doldrums of summer is cool refreshing summer drinks. It's one of the few arrows in our frosty quiver. If you scroll down to past entries, you'll find a running theme of, "What will keep me from sweating my central nervous system out of my pores?"

I don't often resort to frozen drinks. I like them just fine, but I am very lazy. To do a frozen drink, I have to drag out the blender and then clean it afterward. But sometimes the thermometer requires bold action.

Heather has been chomping at the bit for fresh local strawberries to be in season. This past weekend she finally got her wish at the farmer's market. She used most of them to make something delicious (more details on Wednesday,) but there were enough left over for me to play around a little.

In searching the internet for a good drink recipe that incorporates strawberries, I came across a listing in The New York Times back in 2002 for a Strawberry Basil Margarita. It seemed like the perfect thing to cool us down, and easy to do because we have a makeshift herb garden on our windowsill. The only problem was that if I was going to make the recipe as written, there would be a lot of debris to deal with. I was looking for a smoother, more consistent experience. The simplest solution would be to make it frozen. It kills many birds with a single stone.

Frozen Strawberry Basil Margarita

adapted from The New York Times

-2 oz. Tequila

-2 oz. strawberries

-3/4 oz. lime juice

-1/2 oz. simple syrup

-6 basil leaves

Combine all ingredients in a blender with enough ice to thicken (1-1/2 cup.) Pour into a margarita glass and garnish with a basil leaf and lime wedge.

I liked this margarita a lot and it was very different from what I was used to. I also played around with it and replaced the six leaves of basil with about twelve leaves of mint. I think I preferred the mint to the basil. It was in keeping with the refreshing summer drinks theme. What could be more refreshing than mint? As Heather put it, the basil version might be better for pre-dinner cocktails and the mint version might be better as a dessert cocktail.

The nice part about making drinks in a blender is that once you have it out, you can do multiple drinks at once. I might have to bust one of these out for my dad this summer; he does enjoy a nice banana daiquiri from time to time. This makes these drinks an incredibly handy thing to be able to make full batches of for pool parties, get-togethers, hootenannies, and box socials...especially box socials.

Mojito—I don’t think it’s a gay drink

The mojito has made it’s way into the mainstream of drink society and I couldn’t be happier. There are fewer things better than chilling out on a hot summer day with your favorite gal and a tall mojito. The sweetness of the sugar (1/2 to 3/4 of an ounce of simple syrup,) the dynamic interplay of the rum and lime (2 oz and 1/2 oz respectively,) and the vibrancy of the fresh mint (eight to ten leaves muddled and a sprig for garnish,) the effervescence of the club soda (fill to top of mojito or pilsner glass and stir.) The drink originated in Cuba and gained popularity in the United States with the film remake of Miami Vice. Actually I don’t think anyone cares about Miami Vice. I don’t know exactly what made the mojito popular in the U.S. I guess the real question is what took so long.

A little while ago, Heather and I were at at a monthly event at the club SOB’s called Basement Bhangra where they play Bhangra music and give you a crash course in Indian dancing and then turn you loose with your new found skills on a dance floor filled with strobe lights and lasers. The hook here is free mojitos early in the night to get things going. What ends up happening is that I forget most of what I learned and just start acting like a spaz. Heather too. We do this until the crowd get too big and invades our personal space. Dance clubs aren’t very big on personal space I’ve noticed. We get there early enough to avoid the large cover charge and head straight for the bar where we proceed to say things like, “Where’s my mojito?” and “Give it to me.”

What they gave us was a blue frozen concoction that was reminiscent of a Blue Raspberry Slurpee you would find at the 7-Eleven. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway because brevity is not my strong suit—we were a little disappointed. We tried it and it seemed to be sugar, ice, and peppermint schnapps (or some other mouthwash tasting liqueur) mixed in a blender with some blue food coloring. Come to think of it, maybe it was blue because they actually used Scope. I suppose there could have been rum in there but there was so much mint that I couldn’t tell. When the bartender came around again, we asked for a mojito. When he saw that our plastic cups were mostly full we looked him in the eye and said, “a real mojito.” He nodded, flashed us a knowing smile and made our drinks. They were carefully crafted and well balanced. As I enjoyed my drink I glanced down at my blue monstrosity and wondered how the former could be confused for the latter.

As with anything that gains popularity in the United States, I’ve seen a few mass marketing attempts. There are mixes that have the lime, mint, and sugar in it. There are mixes that even include the rum. Orbit has a line of gum called mint mojito (a bit redundant considering that a mojito already has mint.) At the restaurant where I am employed, they serve a virgin sparkling mojito with ginger. It’s pretty good but when you take the rum out, it has no balls. It’s more of a sparkling lime-aid.

If you ever get the opportunity, gentle reader, to whip up a pitcher of mojitos for a party or small gathering, you will be the hit of said party. I’ve done it before and it goes over well. Sometimes when I’m drinking a mojito, I look at all the leaves and lime floating around and I imagine that it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon—that somewhere in space, on a distant planet, there’s a river that flows with mojito and all somebody had to do was go dunk my glass into it’s ever-flowing mojito waters and bring it to me. God bless you space river. Of course this thought usually occurs to me by mojito number three or four.