©iStockphoto.com/jsberry For a spirit that’s earned a reputation over the decades as a skull-thumping, inhibition-be-gone, regret-inducing, everyone-gone-wild kind of drink, tequila is getting a lot of respectable love nowadays. And as Jonathan Miles wrote in last weekend’s New York Times, and as I wrote in the August issue of Wine & Spirits, bartenders are increasingly turning to tequila in their pursuit of new frontiers for mixological exploration. It's been a long time coming. Mostly absent from American bars until the second half of the 20th-century, tequila quickly became a hard-partying kind of drink, and all sorts of alcoholic indiscretions have been blamed on the fiery spirit. As Miles describes it, until recently, "Tequila specials were like petri dishes for...
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Photograph from Eleonor on FlickrI never really bought into mezcal’s whole hallucinogenic-insect thing, not even when I was a gullible undergrad, but the close urban-legend association between mezcal and creepy crawlies was enough to keep me away from the spirit for most of my adult years. Not that I was missing out on anything – until relatively recently, most commercial mezcal sold in the U.S. was of shoddy quality, and mezcal was a novelty booze that was better known for having a dare-worthy worm or scorpion in the bottle than for any gustatory excellence. But as Dan Saltzstein writes in today's New York Times, mezcal is on the ascendance. Artisan-crafted mezcals such as those from Ilegal, Del Maguey, Sombra and...
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©iStockphoto.com/NWphotoguy Summer is one of the best times to enjoy tequila, and yesterday Emily Koh gave a great overview of the basic types of the agave spirit. Currently, though, there are several tequila producers who are working to refine tequila’s category even further, sourcing the agave to certain fields to see if there’s a distinctive enough difference in the tequila made from these different regions. This topic of tequila terroir is addressed in this month’s Wine & Spirits by a tag team of spirits writers composed of Camper English and David Wondrich—and it’s a sticky topic, indeed. While there’s long been a noted distinction between the sweeter, floral highland tequilas from Los Altos and the earthier lowland tequilas from Tequila...
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Photograph from bbum on Flickr If you think Cuervo Gold is good tequila, you may want to check out Bill Bumgarner's tequila guide and educate yourself. The majority of tequila consumed in the U.S. is adulterated tequila, which for the most part is not so good taste-wise, and is also a ticket to a not-so-fun morning should you have too much. Your best bet would be to look for one that is made from 100 percent blue agave. Cuervo Gold and other cheap brands are composed of at least 51 percent blue agave (as required by Mexican law), and the remaining 49 percent is cheap sugar cane–based liquor. This, combined with the addition of caramel (for flavor and color) and...
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Not enough cupcakes have lime garnishes. Maybe because not enough cupcakes are spiked with tequila. This vegan-friendly Cinco de Mayo recipe for margarita cupcakes with lime garnish presented by Beantown Baker from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero only calls for a tablespoon of the fermented agave plant, which means you probably won't feel intoxicated after eating it. But maybe frosting shots could fix that? She makes them look even more enticing with this impressive lime backdrop....
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"When restaurant patrons browse through tequila lists offering dozens of choices, that's a clue. When liquor stores carry high-end tequilas at prices usually associated with single-malt scotch, that's another. But when aficionados toss around terms like "floral notes," "layers of complexity" and "hints of caramel and vanilla" to describe a beverage that used to be knocked back with a lick of salt, a bite of lime and a wince of esophagus-searing pain, there can be no doubt: tequila has arrived." Jack Broom of the Seattle Times discovers there's more to tequila than the nasty shots we all did back in college....
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