Category Archives: cocktails

Prickly Pear Margaritas for Cinco de Mayo (and Beyond)

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Disclosure Statement: This post contains affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, I receive a commission at no additional cost to you. All opinions are my own.

Cinco de Mayo is happening this Friday. Or, for those whom the actual holiday has no personal cultural relevance, Cinco de Drinko: a day for Americans to down Margaritas and Mexican food.

I hope you enjoyed my post on Mexican wine, but – de veras – this holiday demands a Margarita. Nothing short of a Margarita will suffice for today. And this Margarita recipe is sin igual in terms of show stopping good looks and jaw dropping flavors.

This recipe is courtesy of Keli Sim DeRitis – an artist, designer, passionate cook, teacher, and tour guide. Her business, Poggi Bonsi, offers all manner of gorgeous and delicious things, including cooking classes, European tours, and special import gifts and food items for your home kitchen.

My husband and I took a cooking class with her a couple years ago on Sicilian cooking and wines and it was fantastic and utterly delicious! You can buy her cookbook on Amazon (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying links), which includes several themed menus grouped by European travel destination. Check out her website for more information.

What makes this Margarita extra special is the Prickly Pear syrup. Prickly Pear is a flowering plant of the cactus family, and according to the Mayo Clinic is reputed to help treat diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and hangovers.

Laugh. Out. Loud. Combining this lovely plant with sugar and alcohol per-rob-ably won’t help with the above ailments, but, like the overweight American who orders the Diet Coke with the huge cheeseburger and extra large French fries, we optimistically and ignorantly think that one small “good” deed outweighs all the other poor dietary choices.

Gotta laugh at ourselves, right? 😉

This Magnificent Magenta Margarita is not only supremely photogenic, its refreshing and diverse flavors sweep over you and ferry you to Margarita bliss.

Give it a try, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it. 🙂

Recipe notes: I doubled the recipe to make 2 drinks. Use only fresh-squeezed lime juice. For the sugar/salt/lime zest mix for the glass rim, massage the three ingredients together with your fingers to release those lovely lime essential oils.

*Prickly pear syrup can be purchased online. Look for Cheri’s Desert Harvest. The only ingredients are sugar, prickly pear cactus, lemon, and citrus pectin. And yes, that color is real! (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying links).

For an alcohol-free mocktail: throw some prickly pear syrup, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and club soda together. ¡Deliciosa!

PRICKLY PEAR MARGARITA

Prickly Pear MargaritasIngredients

  • 3 ounces tequila blanco (aka silver tequila or tequila plata)
  • 1/2-ounce Cointreau or Triple Sec
  • 1 1/2 ounces freshly-squeezed lime juice
  • 2 ounces prickly pear syrup*
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar
  • 1 teaspoon lime zest
  • Prickly pear or lime slice for garnish

Directions

  1. Pour the tequila, Cointreau, lime juice and prickly pear syrup into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously to incorporate. Alternately, you can blend the cocktail ingredients with ice in a blender.
  2. Combine the salt, sugar, and lime zest on a small plate. Run a slice of lime around the rim of a chilled glass and dip into the mixture and coat the edge.
  3. Fill the glass with ice and pour in the margarita. Garnish with a prickly pear slice (available at many Hispanic and Asian markets) or a slice of lime.

Red Diamonds Are Everyone’s Best Friend

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Just remember, Red Diamonds are a girl’s (and boy’s) best friend!

Lasso This Merlot: Red Diamond Wines Shine Brilliantly

Many of you feel dazed and confused when shopping for wine. Rows of seemingly identical bottles stretch along for miles, all sporting cryptic labels with meaningless verbiage. “What does this even mean?” you wonder as you scratch your head and do your best to translate with a limited vocabulary. It’s as though you’ve landed in a rural French village in 1862, equipped with only a week of high school French. You begin to perspire and panic like a straight man in the salon shoes section of Nordstrom. Is that $30 bottle worth the gamble? Maybe, maybe not.

It can be overwhelming, but it need not be intimidating any longer! Here is a wine you can zoom in on with laser wine vision, swoop in for the kill, and get out in time to finish the rest of your shopping. Whew!

This, my friends, is it. This is the quintessential red wine you will want to buy by the case, because it is incredible. Red Diamond Merlot from Washington is one of my personal all-time favorite wines. It happens to be one of the top ten Merlots in America. (PLEASE don’t go up in price, Red Diamond!). It is perfect on its own, but it is also wonderful in sangria, a Spanish punch made out of red wine. It’s dark and fruity, with perfect body and balance. Did I mention it’s less than $10?

From the tasting notes: “Our Washington Merlot opens with a beautifully knit blackberry, cherry, and spice scented nose with a toasty oak background. Sweet fruit on the palate is complemented by medium-bodied but firm tannins. Red Diamond celebrates the personality of Washington’s distinctive red wines. Layers of luscious flavors are revealed in each bottle, exuding style and confidence. Our Red Diamond Merlot is a shining example of Washington’s best varietal – a polished wine with softly spiced black cherry, berry and plum flavors.”

Don’t limit yourself to just the Merlot… they also make other wines, including Shiraz, Malbec, and Chardonnay! I can personally vouch for the Cab, it’s outstanding.

A rule of thumb: any wine you cook with must also taste good. It need not be expensive, but taste good it must! (Like Yoda I speak, expert therefore I be).

Here’s a recipe for Sangria I made recently for a Cinco de Mayo party (courtesy of Better Homes & Garden New Cookbook, 14th ed., with my comments). I recommend using Red Diamond Merlot, as it imparts a subtle cinnamon flavor to the sangria and blends well with the citrus juices.

1 cup orange juice (no pulp)
¼ cup lime juice
1 750-milliliter bottle dry red wine (Red Diamond Merlot)
¼ – 1/3 cup sugar
Ice cubes

In a 2-quart pitcher stir together orange and lime juices. Add wine and sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved (I like the sugar from Trader Joe’s). Cover and chill for 3 to 24 hours. Serve over ice.

I garnished mine with orange and lime slices, frozen cranberries and Golden Delicious apple chunks. This sangria is fantastic; it’s like winter mulled wine, but for spring.

I hope Red Diamond becomes one of your favorite go-to wines!