Margerettaville carb free (Lisa Coatney)

[Don Coatney]

The other Norm,

I will be generous and share my long sought after recipe for low carb great tasting margaritas. After much trial and error, I discovered that if you use 1 package of lemon, or lemon lime Crystal light per blender, water and ice and tequila, you can hardly tell that they are low carb. Use real limes to wet the rim of the glass, dip in salt (not sure where or why Brad said "kosher" salt), and then add real lime slices and juice. Be generous with the real limes. If this works for you make a generous deposit in our retirement acount. This is my contrbution to mankind:D

Lisa Coatney

[Normspeed]

Perfect. And a great contribution to mankind as well. I did quite a bit of research on the subject last night. Just as I felt I was nearing a breakthrough, I ran short of lab ingredients, namely tequila.

Now Lisa, do you have any recipes for hangover free margaritas?

[randroid]

Ms. Coatney,

Kosher salt is what you want to use on glass rims. The thicker the salt crystal, the less "salty" it seems because of the rate of its disolving. Something very fine, like popcorn salt, will make you pucker from across the room, while table salt takes slightly longer to disolve and will be milder but still too much. Kosher salt seems just about right for allowing its alkalai to counteract the acid of the citrus, and both lend a hand in accentuating the delicious flavor of the tequila. Rock salt, like you'd pack around a Prime Rib, won't even disolve after hours of baking on fatty meat, but it might break your teeth if chewed.

Tequila was once a product, by Mexican law, of the distilled juice of the Agave cactus (which, if you haven't seen one, looks like Aloe Vera on steroids) grown only in the State of Tequila. (As an aside, the juice of the Agave, once fermented, is called Pulque (pull-kay) and in the more isolated Mexican villages is the local substitute for beer. It looks like milky baby-burp and the second taste might be considered an heroic effort, but a taste for it can be acquired.) Today Tequila must be only 50% Agave with the other 50% being anything from brandy to everclear cut with swamp water, and can be distilled anywhere.

The finest Marg can be made only with pure Agave tequila, but pure Agave tequila has become a fad complete with its own snobs, and the price of a good bottle now appoaches if not exceeds that of a decent 12-year-old single malt Highlands scotch. You'd spend a fortune copping a buzz with a few friends at an afternoon barbeque, but there are ways around this.

I once spent an afternoon in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico, asking the locals (I speak Spanish) what their favorite tequila is, and 100% of them said "Sausa Conmemorativo". It isn't much more expensive today than it was when introduced in the mid-70's to mark the 100th anniversary of the Sausa distillery, and once you taste it you'll look in scorn at Cuervo Gold. Congratulations; you're becoming a tequila snob! Seriously, the other Sausas aren't above average so try Conmemorativo and compare tastes.

Fresh lime is great with any cocktail, but also experiment with the other popular citrus fruits, like lemon, orange, and even the lowly grapefruit (the only fruit to be named for another fruit). You'll rarely ruin anything trying that stuff and you may be surprised at the magnificent concoctions you may create. Be sure to take notes on what you're doing because you probably won't remember the next morning.

Sorry to run-on as I have but I've put years of study into different boozes and it's rarely that I get to talk about it to a person on the same side of the bar as I.

-Randy

[Brad Lustig]

I figured Don would be scratching his head over the Kosher salt. Go pick some up at the store, Don. It'll be all you use before too long.

Kosher salt is all I use when cooking. It's much easier to use. A lot harder to oversalt foods. 1ts kosher salt has about half the amount of sodium as 1ts table salt (and chloride). It's just lighter weight. Seasalt is good, too. But I don't use that while cooking, just for flavoring cooked foods. I would guess it would be good for margaritas, too.

Here's a trick for salting the rims of plastic and styrofoam cups that I discovered. Rub a little olive oil around the edge instead of lime juice or water.

[teardrop puller]

Great info Randy

I am going to look for the Sausa Conmemorativo next time I buy taquilla.

Every time we have a party I am shocked at how many different brands of taquilla and brandys that show up.

When we first move to Mexico, rum was the big drink of the masses. Now it seems that most have shiffeted to brandy. Of course taquilla and mezcal are old standbys.

Lisa- When I get to the states the end of this month, I am going to try the Crystal Light thing. Margaritas anre not normaly made down here, at least in Veracruz, except in tourist joints. My friend and I have a frozen margareta machine and have interduced the tourist to margaritas when there are lots of tourist in town and we set up to sell them. Suprisingly they love them just as we do.

thanks again for such good info

kai

[eric wissing]

"The Salt of the earth" If there is anything you want to know about salt I reccomend Mark Kurlansky's book, "Salt; a World History". When you get done with that his book "Cod" is good too.

Road Salt might be our enemy but where would be without it? Eric