Blueberry Margaritas

Jul 31

Jul 31 Blueberry Margaritas

My rhythm with margarita making requires a ton of limes (for Americans, a Costco bag’s worth), a sharp zester, and a few hours of patience to extract all the flavor citrus (or other add-ins) have to offer for a large batch of well-balanced cocktails. Most importantly, just be prepared to taste as you mix and adjust the ratios to your liking. I also prefer the bitter orange notes of Cointreau over more syrupy triple sec, but if you are using triple sec note it is much sweeter and you’ll want to pour lighter with the lemon-lime syrup. The same method of extracting blueberry flavor in acid can be done with just about anything — juice a grapefruit, halve a jalapeño, or crush some cranberries based on whatever’s available. Writing this in the midwest in late July, pints of blueberries are readily available, so this is the lakeside sipper of the moment.

Blueberry Margarita

4 parts tequila
2 part Cointreau
2 part blueberry citrus juice
1 part lemon-lime syrup

Stir aggressively with ice and serve :)

Blueberry citrus juice

200 g / 1-2 cups blueberries
8-12 limes
2 lemons

Zest and juice citrus and combine zest with juice. Reserve citrus halves for syrup, below. Briefly pulse blueberries in a food processor, or otherwise crush thoroughly. Add crushed blueberries in with the zest and juice and let sit at room temperature for at least 4 hours, or refrigerated overnight. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve to remove zest and blueberries, pressing the mash with a spoon to extract as much blueberry flavor as possible. If making margaritas, you can ‘rinse’ the zest-berry mash with orange liqueur to extract all the fruit and zest have to offer.

Lemon-lime syrup

Combine the juiced and zested rinds of limes and lemons with 400 g / 2 cups. Stir and squeeze thoroughly to incorporate sugar with citrus. Let sit at room temperature for at least 4 hours or refrigerate overnight, then strain out syrup. Squeeze the citrus over a strainer or in a potato ricer, the bitterness of the pith is an important addition to this syrup.