As happy hour has been moved from your favorite bar to your favorite couch, Saline Restaurant at Hotel Joaquin is giving you the recipes to three of their favorite spritz’s that will take your taste buds on a mini vacation from the comfort of your home to the coast of Laguna Beach. Step outside of your normal drink rotation and mix things up with the 985, The Master or their signature welcome cocktail, the Auric Spritz, all three will definitely impress your virtual happy hour friends. The light and fresh fruit flavors of these summer inspired drinks are perfect to enjoy with lunch or dinner, from Magdalena Rum to Nardini Mandorola Grappa and of course a lot of Prosecco, take your pick and have fun!
985
Combine and-muddle give a quick shake, fine strain:
1oz St. Germain
.75oz Nardini Mandorola Grappa
.25oz Simple Syrup
.5oz Lemon Juice
1 Hulled Strawberry
Then top with 3oz Prosecco
GARNISH: Strawberry slices, lemon wheel, tarragon
The Master
Combine:
1.5 Cocchi Americano
.25oz Le Canne Bleu Rhum
.5oz Small Hands Passion Fruit Syrup
.25oz Lemon Juice
3 Dashes of Angostura Bitters
Give a quick Whip with your ice and dump in your glass. Then top with:
1.5oz Sparkling wine
GARNISH: Edible flowers, lemon wheel
The Auric Spritz
Muddle 3-5 sprigs of mint & combine in a mixing glass with:
1oz. Aperol
.5oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
.5oz Magdalena Rum,
.25oz Simple Syrup
.5oz Lemon Juice
Saying good-bye to an old year and welcoming in a new year full of possibilities is a great occasion to pull out your cocktail glasses and favorite cocktail recipes. Whether you insist that your guests dress in their best for your party or your focus is on comfort and a friendly gathering, there are several things you can do to make sure everyone is having a great time.
One: Arrange Rides Ahead of Time
When you plan a party knowing that you’re serving a lot of alcohol, plan ahead. Make sure you have your phone fully charged and that you’ve saved the numbers to your favorite cab companies. You may want to book a cab or two ahead of time unless you don’t mind having a guest crash at your home overnight.
Two: Choose One or Two Cocktails
Serving a full bar can quickly become very expensive. When you want to serve cocktails, limit your offerings to one or two drinks. If guests want something else, you could have wine and beer available. Keep things fun by offering an array of unique and festive garnishes.
Three: Serve Food
A sweet cocktail is a fun way to help your guests get comfortable but serving them in addition to some fun snacks or a meal is a good way to save money and cut down on the next day’s hangovers. A full range of appetizers or hors d’oeuvres can reduce the amount of alcohol you go through and may prevent guests from becoming too inebriated.
Four: Figure Out How Much Alcohol You Need
Your New Year’s party will come to an unhappy end if you run out of food and drinks. Make sure you have plenty of alcohol by considering how many people will attend, how long the party should last, and whether the drinks are the primary focus or just a side attraction. As you make your calculations, give yourself a bit of wiggle room by getting extra ingredients.
Five: Establish Limits
It’s a good idea to avoid becoming very drunk yourself, so you’re able to recognize if one of your guests is making dangerous decisions. You may need to find rides for guests or make decisions about whether a guest should continue drinking. At some point in the night, stop serving your New Years Eve cocktails and switch to soft drinks, tea, or coffee. You may want to hire a professional bartender to help you with this part of the night.
Six: Brush Up on Local Laws
Even if you’re serving alcohol in your home, there are laws that could affect you. Make sure you’re familiar with liquor licensing and service laws in your area. If you’re not sure where to find information about these laws, contact your insurance provider. Protect yourself from “dram shop liability” or social host liability. If you serve alcohol and one of your guests injures someone else, you could be held responsible.
Hosting a party to celebrate a brand-new year is a great way to get your friends and family together. Make sure everyone enjoys themselves and gets home safely by choosing a good selection of drinks and food and by considering the safety of your guests.
A.S.K. AND UNLOCK THE SECRETS: FEW SPIRITS, SEATTLE GRUNGE LEGENDS ALICE IN CHAINS COLLABORATE ON ALL SECRETS KNOWN, 101-PROOF BOURBON FINISHED IN TEQUILA BARRELS
“For us distilling, like making music, is about having the courage to ASK, ‘What if we…’ and being excited to find the answers – unlocking those secrets.” – Paul Hletko, Master Distiller, FEW Spirits
FEW Spirits and Warner Music Artist Services announce today the release of All Secrets Known, a new, limited-release bourbon distilled by FEW Spirits Master Distiller Paul Hletko in collaboration with Grammy-nominated and multi-platinum selling Seattle Grunge pioneers Alice In Chains, whose music has stood the test of time and influenced a generation. Bottles feature a custom-designed label by artist Justin Helton.
The Whiskey All Secrets Known (SRP: $75/750 ml), a nod to the name of the opening track of Alice In Chains’ 2009 certified Gold release Black Gives Way To Blue, is FEW Bourbon finished for six months in tequila barrels and bottled at the most rock and roll of proofs, 101 (50.5% ABV). Bold, sweet, and spicy bourbon top notes that have become the hallmark of FEW and led to multiple category awards, are accentuated by grassy agave undertones.
Said Hletko, “There are no two spirits that have a closer association with rock and roll than whiskey and tequila. Bringing together elements of both, but in an unconventional, innovative way, is an illustration of what we try to do every time we distill a new product.”
The Collaboration “Alice In Chains is part of one of very few movements that can be legitimately credited with shapeshifting an entire culture, beginning with their first album, Facelift,” continues Hletko. “For us distilling, like making music, is about having the courage to ASK, ‘What if we…’ and being excited to find the answers – unlocking those secrets. Nobody sounds like Alice In Chains. We were inspired by their courage to create a sound that flouted convention and thought, ‘There are lots of tequilas finished in bourbon barrels, but it’s rare to find a widely-available bourbon finished in tequila barrels. Let’s do that instead’.”
Added Matt Young, EVP of Warner Music Artist Services, “Our team always seeks out the best in the business when it comes to our artist product collaborations. FEW Spirits was a no brainer when the idea first came up to create an Alice In Chains Bourbon Whiskey.”
The Label Design Artist Justin Helton, of Status Serigraph, is no stranger to working with musical giants like Phish, The Avett Brothers, My Morning Jacket, Ween, and The Black Keys created the custom label.
“I’ve been a fan of Alice In Chains forever with Jar of Flies being one of the first CD’s I ever owned,” says Helton. “‘I Stay Away’ and ‘No Excuses’ were on repeat in my room. For this design I found inspiration in the name All Secrets Known. The eye in the mouth is a play on seeing all that’s been spoken. The color scheme is a nod to Black Gives Way to Blue, the album on which the song ‘All Secret Known’ appears.”
Helton designed the label in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, also using a mix of hand-rendered illustrations with imagery from the 1800’s to create a distinct look.
A Legacy of Rock and Roll Partnerships All Secrets Known is yet another foray for FEW Spirits into partnerships with internationally-renowned music acts. In 2006, Hletko partnered with The Flaming Lips to create Brainville Rye Whiskey.
“Brainville led to access,” Hletko said. “Doors started opening and I’ve always felt like when you get a chance to work with cool people you admire, you’ve got to at least check it out. As a long-time fan of Alice In Chains and someone who has at various points made his living as a guitar player, the opportunity to work with someone like Jerry Cantrell, whose sound is unlike any other, was one we were determined to see through come hell or high water.
Limited-release All Secrets Known will be available in CA, CO, IL, NY, and WA and for purchase online through ReserveBar.com.
About FEW Spirits A grain-to-glass distillery since 2011, FEW Spirits produces award–winning craft whiskey and gin in a tucked away alley located in the growing Chicago suburb of Evanston, IL.. A historical town where Prohibition lasted until 1972, Founder & Master Distiller Paul Hletko changed the future of Evanston when he opened FEW Spirits Distillery, the first (legal) alcohol-production facility of any kind to ever open there.
Paul Hletko always knew he wanted to make craft spirits —produced in the local Chicago area—that offered something different, delicious and fun. Living in Evanston, a town that was prime for change after being dry for four decades post the repeal of prohibition, Paul felt it was the perfect home and backdrop for FEW and the brand. Deeply integrated into the brand story, both Evanston and Chicago are crucial elements of the FEW DNA and its inspiration. From its liquid, created from locally grown or sourced ingredients, to the look & feel of the design, which pays homage to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago— FEW is the true definition of a local Illinois craft spirit.
FEW Spirits features a refreshing and innovative portfolio including a stable of core spirits and several small batch limited edition specialty expressions. Each flagship spirit is a new take on the timeless liquors of the past; distilled from the very best grains, aged to perfection, and bottled under the FEW roof. The small batch limited editions hold true to the premium quality FEW drinkers have to come to love and expect from the brand, but offer something novel to the oft-ordinary taste and style we’ve all grown accustomed to.
In a world over saturated with mass-produced spirits, only few remain truly handcrafted, locally sourced and small-batched. FEW has never strayed from this—even as it grows, Paul and his team continue to provide consistently impeccable spirits that are true to their craft roots and reminiscent of their home base.
About Alice In Chains Seminal rock band ALICE IN CHAINS recently toured in support of RAINIER FOG, which hit No. 1 across Billboard’s Rock, Alternative and Hard Music Charts and No. 1 on the iTunes Rock Album Chart and earned them a Grammy nom for “Best Rock Album.” Over the course of their remarkable career, ALICE IN CHAINS (vocalist/guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney, bassist Mike Inez and vocalist/guitarist William DuVall) have garnered multiple Grammy nominations, sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, and amassed a diehard international fanbase whose members number in the millions.
Their discography features some of the biggest and most important albums in rock history, including 1992’s quadruple-platinum-certified “DIRT,” 1994’s triple-platinum-certified EP JAR OF FLIES, which was the first EP in music history to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 and 1995’s self-titled double-platinum-certified ALICE IN CHAINS, which also entered the Billboard Top 200 at No. 1. They returned in grand style in 2009 with the critically acclaimed BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE, which hit No. 1 across the rock and alternative charts, earned a Grammy nomination, was certified Gold and hailed by Vice as “a record that’s as powerful as anything the band has done.” ALICE IN CHAINS remains one of the most successful and influential American rock bands of all time.
Kahlúa has some new, exciting cocktails this season including the Pumpkin Spice Espresso Martini and the Cold Brew Martini.
Whether you’re into the traditional taste of pumpkin or you are still drinking cold brew coffee (because honestly who cares what the temperature is), Kahlúa crafted these two delicious and refreshing martinis that will have everyone falling for this season’s specialty cocktails.
Pumpkin Spice Espresso Martini
Ingredients:
1 Part Kahlúa
1 Part Absolut Vodka
1 Part Espresso
1/2 part Monin Pumpkin Spice
Method: Add all of the ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake. Fine-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with 3 coffee beans.
Cold Brew Martini
Ingredients:
1 part Absolut Vodka
2 parts Kahlúa
3 parts cold brew
Method: Fill shaker with ice. Add one part Absolut Vodka, two parts Kahlúa and 3 parts cold brew coffee. Shake the ingredients hard for at least 10 seconds to create a nice foam. Strain into a cocktail glass to get rid of all the small ice chips. Garnish with coffee beans.
Jean-Charles Boisset Introduces Napa Valley’s First Wine History Museum and Tasting Salon: 1881 Napa
1881 Napa Showcases Napa Valley Wines and History in Historic Victorian Home Adjacent to the Oakville Grocery
Napa Valley’s first wine history museum and tasting salon, is now open. Jean-Charles Boisset, proprietor of Boisset Collection, has created an homage to Napa Valley, with a tasting room that showcases wines from Napa Valley’s distinct sub-appellations, a museum where guests can explore Napa’s rich wine history, an extensive collection of historic wine relics from Europe and the United States and original artifacts from the Early California Wine Trade Archive. 1881 Napa is located in a historic Victorian home built in 1874 next to Oakville Grocery (founded in 1881) in Oakville, California, both of which were purchased by Boisset Collection at the beginning of the year.
“Napa Valley has a powerful place in American wine history and 1881 Napa puts the region in perspective on the world stage,” said Boisset, who grew up in Burgundy, France imbued with a passion for wine and learning as the son of vintners and the grandson of educators. “An extraordinary amount has been accomplished in this enclave in a short amount of time and we want to create a destination that celebrates Napa’s long history and its pioneering founders while exploring Napa’s incredibly diverseterroir in one destination.”
The gateway to Napa Valley, 1881 Napa is must-stop for wine enthusiasts, providing guests the opportunity to discover Napa Valley’s AVAs for the first time, or to explore some of their favorite appellations more deeply. Napa Valley was the first AVA designated in California in 1981 and within the region are 16 sub-AVAs that contain more geological diversity than any other wine region, leading to dramatically different wines within Napa Valley.
Located in a building more than 140 years old that was reimagined by renowned architect Howard Backen, 1881 Napa is next door to Oakville Grocery, the oldest continually operating grocery store in California. The two centerpieces of the space — a 48-light Baccarat crystal Zenith chandelier and a reproduction of an 1895 map of Napa County on canvas hanging from the ceiling — provide a dramatic environment to explore the varied wines of the valley, while displays highlighting the unique stories and soils of each appellation surround the tasting room.
The wine museum in 1881 Napa is open to the public with complimentary visitation. A self-guided tour up to and along the museum’s second-floor mezzanine tells the history of Napa Valley, introduces the founders and influential early pioneers of the region and presents a robust collection of wine ephemera, including historic winemaking, vineyard, nursery and cooperage as well as displays curated and organized by the Early California Wine Trade Museum featuring local historic wine artifacts from the collections of Dean Walters and John O’Neill. From the mezzanine, guests have an open view to the tasting room below.
Alcoves hold soil samples from the various regions, along with 1881 Napa wines and descriptions of the appellations written by best-selling and award-winning author of The Wine Bible and wine expert Karen MacNeil. MacNeil also helped develop the various tasting options, which include comparative flights such as “Majestic Mountains Versus Plush Valley” and “Is it Cool to be Hot or Hot to be Cool?” as well as an option to “Embark on a Journey Throughout the Valley” by tasting Cabernet Sauvignons from 12 different sub-AVAs. In addition to the site-specific Cabs, guests can enjoy wines from a blend of Napa Valley grapes, including a sparkling wine, Sauvignon Blanc, rosé, Chardonnay, red blend, Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon — all wines crafted exclusively for 1881 Napa by Winemaker Thane Knutson to reflect the diversity of Napa Valley. After sampling the broad range of Napa Valley styles, guests can discover which AVAs they like the most and purchase wines from 1881 Napa as well Oakville Grocery.
1881 Napa is located at 7856 St. Helena Highway in Oakville and is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Reservations are recommended and can be made here.
About Boisset Collection
Boisset is a family-owned collection of historic and unique wineries and lifestyle destinations led by Jean-Charles Boisset and bound together by a common vision: authentic, terroir-driven wines in harmony with their history, their future and the land and people essential to their existence. With more than 25 historical and prestigious still and sparkling wineries in the world’s preeminent terroirs, including Burgundy, Beaujolais, Jura, the Rhône Valley, the south of France and California’s Russian River Valley and the Napa Valley. Its California wineries include DeLoach Vineyards, Raymond Vineyards, Buena Vista Winery and JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset; its French properties feature Domaine de la Vougeraie, Jean-Claude Boisset, Bouchard Aîné et Fils, J. Moreau et Fils, Louis Bouillot, Domaines Henri Maire, Fortant and Bonpas. Each house retains its unique history, identity and style, and all are united in the pursuit of fine wines expressive of their terroir. Wine is at the center of Boisset’s mission, and is complemented by spirits, beer, cider, gourmet foods and luxury goods, both of its own design and from partnerships with historic companies such as Baccarat, Lalique, St. Louis, Riedel, Christofle, and Bernardaud. To learn more about the Boisset Collection, please visit www.boissetcollection.com.
Los Angeles Times’ annual celebration of the Southern California culinary scene returns with events in L.A. and Costa Mesa. The pop-up block parties will take place at the Paramount Pictures Studios backlot over Labor Day weekend (Friday, Aug. 30 through Sunday, Sept. 1) and The MET over two days in October (Friday, Oct. 18 and Saturday, Oct. 19).
Hosted by The Times’ Food staff, each edition of The Taste will include three individual events. Unlimited tastings from the region’s best restaurants, a variety of wine, beer and seasonal cocktails, plus access to cooking demonstrations and talks by renowned chefs are included with admission. Tickets, ranging from $80 to $115, are on sale now at latimes.com/TheTaste. Early birds can take advantage of $20 off the ticket price with offer code SAVE20.
Are you someone who loves to experiment with taste, especially the taste of alcoholic beverages? If yes, we bet that after reading this article you will have a new list of alcohol brands from India to try next time.
Not many of you may know, but when it comes to alcohol brands, India is home to some of the top-selling brands across the world. Indian market in itself is one of the largest liquor markets in the world with plenty of brands coming up to meet the demands. Some of them have even gathered a significant fan base even in international regions.
Here are some of those top alcohol brands in India you should pick up for your next party. Take a look!
• Amrut Single Malt
If you haven’t tasted the single malt whiskey of Amrut, you are missing on something great. Best known for its amazing quality, Amrut Fusion Single Malt gives delicious notes of fresh fruit followed by a smoky finish. Prepared with a mix of unpeated Indian barley and peated Scottish barley, this single malt whiskey is aged in oak barrels. Interestingly, this brand was also listed as the world’s third finest whiskey by Jim Murray. All the more reason to try it soon, isn’t it?
• Rockdove
Though a new entrant but definitely a strong one on the list, Rockdove is a premium whiskey brand that offers exquisite flavours which are well suited for the sophisticated new generation. Manufactured by Hermes Distillery, Rockdove has started garnering a number of lovers in quite a short span of time. Be it its colour, aroma, fine aftertaste, everything about Rockdove will make you take another glass of this flagship whiskey and enjoy the evening a little more.
• Paul John Single Malt
Another award-winning whiskey brand, this Indian single malt by John Distilleries was launched in 2012 and has remained one of the popular alcohol brands in India. This single malt whiskey is prepared with 6-Row Barley which is specially grown in the foothills of Himalayas and matured enough to get the best taste. It comes in 7 variants include Brilliance, Edited, Bold, Classic Select Cask, Peated Select Cask, Kanya, Oloroso and Single Casks to suit your different tastes.
• DesmondJi
Made from blue-green agave sourced from the Deccan Plateau, DesmondJi is a homegrown liquor brand which would have been labelled as tequila if it were not for the geographical indication system associated with it. The brand offers five agave-based spirits, namely, Agave (100%), Agave (51%), Agave Gold with an oak finish, Margarita and Blue Margarita blend. If you are interested in tasting something authentic and Indian, DesmondJi is just for you.
• Solan No. 1
Brewed in the foothills of Himalaya by Mohan Meakin Limited, Solan No. 1 has been in the market for a long time. The whiskey was even listed among the best whiskeys across the world by Serge Valentin. Blended with mature Malt spirits, Solan No. 1 is aged in oak barrels and has a strong visual appeal and gives a delicious aroma of sweet malt and butterscotch. Not just this, the taste of this whiskey is quite different, smooth and pleasant which will easily make you its fan after just one drink.
Read it all? Well, then don’t forget to try them all when you party next time. And we bet that once you have relished the taste of these top alcohol brands in India, you will not want to go back to your old collection.
The way Mariano Martinez tells it, accounts of the margarita’s beginnings should be taken with a grain of salt—and a wedge of lime. Martinez is the creator of what is arguably the 20th century’s most epochal invention—the frozen margarita machine—and, at the age of 73, the Dallas restaurateur is an indisputable authority on the cocktail in the salt-rimmed glass.
The origin stories date to the ’30s and tend to feature a Mexican showgirl or a Texas socialite and a bartender determined to impress her. One of Martinez’s favorites involves a teenage dancer named Margarita Carmen Cansino who performed at nightclubs in Tijuana. “After Margarita got a contract from a Hollywood studio, she changed her name to Rita Hayworth,” he says. “Supposedly, the drink was named in her honor.”
When it comes to margarita lore, about the only thing for certain is that on May 11, 1971, Martinez pulled the lever on a repurposed soft-serve ice cream dispenser and filled a glass with a coil of pale green sherbet—history’s first prefab frozen margarita. The beverage was teeth-chatteringly cold with a proper tequila face-slap. Happy hour (and hangovers) would never be the same.
By adapting mass-production methods to blender drinks, Martinez elevated the frozen margarita from a border-cantina curiosity to America’s most popular cocktail. The innovation forever changed the Tex-Mex restaurant business (placing bars front and center) and triggered the craze for Tex-Mex food.
Befitting a musician who once recorded three versions of “La Bamba” on an EP titled Lotta Bamba, the convivial Martinez has a fresh, boyish manner and a beaming smile. He grew up in East Dallas, where at age 9 he started bussing tables at El Charo, his father’s Mexican eatery. “The customers were mostly Anglos who often had no idea what tequila was,” he recalls. “They’d show up with a souvenir bottle a friend had brought back from a vacation in Mexico, and ask my dad, ‘What do we do with this?’”
Though at the time liquor couldn’t be sold by the drink in Texas restaurants, the elder Martinez occasionally would whip up frozen margaritas in a blender for his patrons. (Introduced at a 1937 restaurant show in Chicago and bankrolled by bandleader Fred Waring, the humble Waring Blendor revolutionized bar drinks.) The elder Martinez used a recipe gleaned while working at a San Antonio speak-easy in 1938: ice, triple sec, hand-muddled limes and 100 percent blue agave tequila. The secret ingredient was a splash of simple syrup.
In 1970 an amendment to the state constitution made liquor by the drink legal, in cities or counties when approved in local-option elections. Shortly after Dallas voted yes, the younger Martinez launched Mariano’s Mexican Cuisine in a shopping center near the campus of Southern Methodist University. On opening night, the amiable owner appeared in a bandido costume. And customers, serenaded by a mariachi band, were encouraged to order margaritas made from the old family recipe. Libations were poured faster than you could say “One more round.” The second night wasn’t quite as successful: A barfly cornered Martinez and asked, “Do you know how to make frozen margaritas?”
“Oh, sure, sir, the best,” he answered.
“Well, you’d better speak to your bartender. The ones he’s making are terrible.”
As it turned out, the barman was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of margarita orders that he was tossing ingredients into the blender without measuring them. Tired of slicing limes, he threatened to quit and return to his former job at a Steak and Ale, where the most complicated cocktail was a bourbon and Coke. “I saw my dream evaporating,” Martinez says. “I thought, ‘My restaurant will go bust and I’ve screwed up Dad’s formula.’”
The next morning while making a pit stop at a 7-Eleven, Martinez had a eureka moment: “For better consistency, I’d premix margaritas in a Slurpee machine. All the bartender had to do was open the spigot.’” But 7-Eleven’s parent company refused to sell him the contraption. “Besides,” Martinez was told, “everyone knows alcohol won’t freeze.”
Instead of wasting away in Margaritaville, he bought a secondhand soft-serve ice cream machine and tinkered with Dad’s recipe. Diluting the solution with water made the booze taste too weak, but adding sugar produced a uniform slush. Martinez had struck gold. “Cuervo Gold!” he cracks. The sweet, viscous hooch was such a hit that when Bob Hope performed at SMU in the ’70s, he joked about the margarita he’d just ordered at Mariano’s: “I won’t say how big it was, but the glass they serve it in had a diving board on it. And they salt the edge of the glass with a paint roller.”
Martinez’s original machine cranked out ’ritas for a decade before sputtering to a halt. Though he never received a patent or trademark for the device, it has a place in his heart and, since 2005, in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “The credit belongs to heritage and technology,” he says. “The golden ratio was two parts of the past and one of the present.”
The way Mariano Martinez tells it, accounts of the margarita’s beginnings should be taken with a grain of salt—and a wedge of lime. Martinez is the creator of what is arguably the 20th century’s most epochal invention—the frozen margarita machine—and, at the age of 73, the Dallas restaurateur is an indisputable authority on the cocktail in the salt-rimmed glass.
The origin stories date to the ’30s and tend to feature a Mexican showgirl or a Texas socialite and a bartender determined to impress her. One of Martinez’s favorites involves a teenage dancer named Margarita Carmen Cansino who performed at nightclubs in Tijuana. “After Margarita got a contract from a Hollywood studio, she changed her name to Rita Hayworth,” he says. “Supposedly, the drink was named in her honor.”
When it comes to margarita lore, about the only thing for certain is that on May 11, 1971, Martinez pulled the lever on a repurposed soft-serve ice cream dispenser and filled a glass with a coil of pale green sherbet—history’s first prefab frozen margarita. The beverage was teeth-chatteringly cold with a proper tequila face-slap. Happy hour (and hangovers) would never be the same.
By adapting mass-production methods to blender drinks, Martinez elevated the frozen margarita from a border-cantina curiosity to America’s most popular cocktail. The innovation forever changed the Tex-Mex restaurant business (placing bars front and center) and triggered the craze for Tex-Mex food.
Befitting a musician who once recorded three versions of “La Bamba” on an EP titled Lotta Bamba, the convivial Martinez has a fresh, boyish manner and a beaming smile. He grew up in East Dallas, where at age 9 he started bussing tables at El Charo, his father’s Mexican eatery. “The customers were mostly Anglos who often had no idea what tequila was,” he recalls. “They’d show up with a souvenir bottle a friend had brought back from a vacation in Mexico, and ask my dad, ‘What do we do with this?’”
Though at the time liquor couldn’t be sold by the drink in Texas restaurants, the elder Martinez occasionally would whip up frozen margaritas in a blender for his patrons. (Introduced at a 1937 restaurant show in Chicago and bankrolled by bandleader Fred Waring, the humble Waring Blendor revolutionized bar drinks.) The elder Martinez used a recipe gleaned while working at a San Antonio speak-easy in 1938: ice, triple sec, hand-muddled limes and 100 percent blue agave tequila. The secret ingredient was a splash of simple syrup.
In 1970 an amendment to the state constitution made liquor by the drink legal, in cities or counties when approved in local-option elections. Shortly after Dallas voted yes, the younger Martinez launched Mariano’s Mexican Cuisine in a shopping center near the campus of Southern Methodist University. On opening night, the amiable owner appeared in a bandido costume. And customers, serenaded by a mariachi band, were encouraged to order margaritas made from the old family recipe. Libations were poured faster than you could say “One more round.” The second night wasn’t quite as successful: A barfly cornered Martinez and asked, “Do you know how to make frozen margaritas?”
“Oh, sure, sir, the best,” he answered.
“Well, you’d better speak to your bartender. The ones he’s making are terrible.”
As it turned out, the barman was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of margarita orders that he was tossing ingredients into the blender without measuring them. Tired of slicing limes, he threatened to quit and return to his former job at a Steak and Ale, where the most complicated cocktail was a bourbon and Coke. “I saw my dream evaporating,” Martinez says. “I thought, ‘My restaurant will go bust and I’ve screwed up Dad’s formula.’”
The next morning while making a pit stop at a 7-Eleven, Martinez had a eureka moment: “For better consistency, I’d premix margaritas in a Slurpee machine. All the bartender had to do was open the spigot.’” But 7-Eleven’s parent company refused to sell him the contraption. “Besides,” Martinez was told, “everyone knows alcohol won’t freeze.”
Instead of wasting away in Margaritaville, he bought a secondhand soft-serve ice cream machine and tinkered with Dad’s recipe. Diluting the solution with water made the booze taste too weak, but adding sugar produced a uniform slush. Martinez had struck gold. “Cuervo Gold!” he cracks. The sweet, viscous hooch was such a hit that when Bob Hope performed at SMU in the ’70s, he joked about the margarita he’d just ordered at Mariano’s: “I won’t say how big it was, but the glass they serve it in had a diving board on it. And they salt the edge of the glass with a paint roller.”
Martinez’s original machine cranked out ’ritas for a decade before sputtering to a halt. Though he never received a patent or trademark for the device, it has a place in his heart and, since 2005, in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “The credit belongs to heritage and technology,” he says. “The golden ratio was two parts of the past and one of the present.”
As the Golden State Warriors continue their celebrations as Kings of the city, Warriors super fan and actor/comedian Blake Anderson, gifted bottles of Crown Royal XR to the entire 2018 championship team. The bottles of $130 whisky come enclosed in a velvet, blue bag that were embroidered to reflect the team’s achievement.
The team received the bottles from Anderson this week, and he had the following to say about their accomplishment:
“Congratulations on a season fit for a king. As a California native and a Golden State Warriors super fan, I’m stoked to gift every member of the organization with a bottle of Crown Royal XR to celebrate your back-to-back championships like royalty. Cheers, champs!”
