Monday, June 15, 2009
Drunk It's Tequila Monday
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 1:31 PM
...new at Barrio starting today, all tequila served neat is half-price on Mondays—that's 35 tequilas from 11:30 a.m. until close. If your only experience with tequila is salt plus lime plus gulp, you're missing out: A good sipping tequila is a great thing.
Meanwhile, over in Barrio's reader-reviews, people were all love it or hate it back in January, then crickets ever since. I've only been in briefly once; my main impression was that the bar strongly resembled a swim-up bar without the water. There's also the wall of candles—rumor has it that Barrio has one employee devoted to keeping them all lit, and while there are a lot of them, that can't possibly be true.
If you're feeling broke on tequila Monday, get some chips and salsa, and make Margaritas for Dummies at home:
• tall glass, lots of ice
• some kind of not totally bottom-of-the-barrel tequila (but not anything too nice, that's a waste in a mixed drink)
• Odwalla Limeade
• a good squeeze of fresh lime juice
• lime wedge for garnish
Mix to taste.
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Traditionally you would just use lime juice, but limeade is a good shortcut. I like Newman's Own.
As for the tequila, reposado is good for mixed drinks. Some flavor (more than blanco), but not too much (less than anejo), and you can use the cheaper stuff that normally you wouldn't want to shoot.
Salt the rim. Then two parts tequila, one part triple sec, and add limeade to taste.
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Raw! Egg! OMG!!!...
(You really need to get out more.)
Any Flip Fizz or Sour has always had raw egg... unless its prepared by a complete hack with a bottle of pre-mixed cocktail mixer.
And for the record, a good bartender, like the bartender at Barrio, is going to regard anyone who requests a "Vodka!" drink as an uncouth neanderthal. (Its like going to Parma and asking for Velveeta on your pasta except that Velveeta has a foul taste while Vodka just makes other things taste foul.)
Vodka lends nothing to a drink. No flavor. Nothing. It actually reacts with citruses and other ingredients to damage their flavor, in effect ruining the drink. Anything you think is "tasty" with vodka will be improved with gin.
Otherwise your approach is admirable. But next time, just give the bartender a flavor profile ("light, fruity, and sweet") without naming liquor varietals and you may find yourself in a brave new (and improved) world. (You will also at least appear moderately sophisticated.) If asked, its always better to say "surprise me" than to force a bartender with any real talent to work with something as base as vodka. You wouldn't ask Michelangelo to work in pretty pink Play-Doh would you?
We really should all do what little we can to improve this world and it seems to me that drinking well is the very least one can do.
Please know that I say these things out of kindness.
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Buy whatever tequila is on sale but isn't normally the cheapest. Get the big bottle so you don't mind making more.
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Going in tomorrow. Will do a full review then.
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