I went to the first of my annual crawfish boils this last weekend. My boiling pot and burner arrived from Amazon the day before, so I took it along in case we wanted to use two. We did, and I am amazed at the difference between the older, 35,000 btu burner we used and my new 105,000 btu jet burner. 120 pounds of crawfish went pretty quick with two pots going.

Each boil, I pick a cocktail to make. There’s been the Mexican Martini, one year, and Mojitos, another. This year, I opted for the Sazerac, since we had some good friends coming in from New Orleans. I’ve tried a couple of recipes, but the best, by far, is Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Sazerac:

If you’re new to this, there’s a couple of things to note. You can get a very bad excuse for a Sazerac if you don’t follow the directions closely. This is a strong drink. You’re basically drinking rye whiskey with some flavoring from the bitter, lemon, and Herbsaint.

Speaking of Herbsaint, don’t do more than rinse the glass with it. The flavor will be overpowering and you’ll ruin your drink if you go nuts with the Herbsaint.

Note the whiskey used. Rye whiskey, not bourbon. Different whiskey, different flavor - don’t substitute here. Jeffrey prefers the Buffalo Trace Sazerac rye, but I opted for Wild Turkey’s rye since my local liquor store doesn’t carry Buffalo Trace’s whiskey. I thought the Wild Turkey made a great cocktail.

Be sure to check out Jeffrey’s do’s and don’ts of Sazeracs, then go forth and make one!

It’s a filling, refreshing take on the margarita and the avocado. I think it’s a great early-afternoon drink to have with a plate of fajita nachos.

There are recipes out there you can try (and by all means, experiment) but this is the one I like best:

Start with this:

• 4 oz tequila
• 4 oz bauchant
• 2 oz lime juice
• 6 oz sweet n sour

Add to a blender and fill about halfway with ice. Blend till everything’s nice and mixed. Now add:

• 1 large avocado
• 1 oz sweet n sour

Blend again till the avocado is nicely pureed. Add more ice if the consistency isn’t to your liking. Salt the rim of a margarita glass; pour your margarita and enjoy.

This is a fun topic, one of my favorites. The article title popped up in my site stats as a search query. The difference is simply the main liquors used. For those not of the mixological persuasion, margaritas start with tequila, martinis with either gin, if you are a purist, or vodka, my personal choice.

A good gin martini recipe would be something like this:

1. Fill your clean martini shaker with ice about halfway.
2. Fill your martini glass with ice and cold water. Set aside.
3. Start with 2 shots of gin. (one shot = 1.5 ounces)
4. Add one-half an ounce of dry vermouth. (Not sweet vermouth!)
5. Stir till well mixed. Resist the urge to shake it. That’s what you do when you are mixing a drink that includes juices.
6. Dump out the ice and water from your martini glass. Shake vigorously to dry as much as possible. Do not dry the glass with a towel!
7. Strain the martini into the martini glass. Garnish with an olive.

That’s the basic dry martini. If you substitute a good clean vodka instead of gin, you have a vodka martini. I prefer a nice potato vodka, as the grain vodkas aren’t as crisp and clean. The exception I’ve found is Austin’s own Tito’s vodka, which, while grain-based, has a nice peppery flavor. If you want to go even simpler, follow Stephen Green’s martini recipe and skip the vermouth. On to the margarita.

1. Fill shaker halfway with ice.
2. Add 2 shots tequila.
3. Add 1 shot of Bauchant (or your orange liqueur of choice)
4. Add fresh-squeezed juice from half a lime.
5. Shake vigorously.
6. Pour into a rocks glass, enjoy.

There are several variants of this, but this is about as original as the drink comes. (Yes, the story goes that the first margarita was made with lemon juice and Cointreau. To each his/her own.) If you want to make a frozen one, I like this mix: one part frozen limeade, one part tequila (perhaps more if necessary), one-half part of Bauchant, ice, blend. Frozen margaritas can be topped with such things as Red Bull or Chambord to further mix things up.

Now let’s bring these two drinks together. In Austin there are several restaurants that serve a drink called a Mexican Martini. This is a Good Thing®. It is simultaneously smooth, tangy and refreshing. Here’s the recipe:

1. Fill your clean martini shaker with ice about halfway.
2. Fill your martini glass with ice and cold water. Set aside.
3. Add two parts tequila.
4. Add four parts sweet and sour mix.
5. Add one part Bauchant.
6. Add one part orange juice.
7. Add one part olive juice.
8. Shake vigorously.
9. Strain into the rinsed, chilled martini glass.
10. Garnish with a jalapeño-stuffed olive.

The martini, the margarita, and the Mexican Martini. All you need to do now is add sunshine, water, and some Buffett. It’s summertime in Texas. See you on the beach!

So I’ve been getting some good comments on the site redesign and a few are concerning the martini motif and my being in Texas. My response is that I drink Mexican Martinis and no, that’s not just a margarita in a martini glass. If it is, as I replied to Robbie, then you need to switch bars or educate the barkeep.

A Margarita is a great drink. I love them. They’re refreshing and light and tart. Tequila, triple-sec, lime juice. Blended with ice or poured over it, it’s a great hot weather drink. The Mexican Martini takes it a bit further. To the above, add orange juice and olive juice. Vary the olive juice to taste and substitute sweet & sour mix in place of lime juice and you’ve got my recipe. Want the proportions? Here ya go:

What you get is the more mature cousin of the margarita. Where the Margarita wants to flash her boobs and get on MTV’s Summer Beach House, the Mexican Martini knows the name of the best bartender in town, how to tip properly and the names of the best late-night dance clubs. True, the drink doesn’t have to be served in a shaker and a martini glass. It adds to the experience and visually distinguishes it further from a margarita. I think the wide mouth of the martini glass makes a big difference. The aroma of the drink comes out better in such a glass as the surface area of the drink is greater.

Now to have a minibar installed in the office…

Liquor Snobs, that is. They’ve found our “spirit”-ual gem that is Tito’s vodka. I prefer a potato-based vodka, usually Polish, for my vodka cocktails, but Tito’s vodka is about the best thing for Cosmo’s according to Mrs. Swanky.

Moxie does a Friday Booze-photoblog entry and suggests a new carnival:

Someday, when I am all grown-up I’d like to start a weekly Carnival of Adult Beverages.

Count me in. Just look over to the side of my main page. I’ve got some recipes ready to go listed under Swanky Drinks. For now, here’s one of the Crown & Coke’s I enjoyed recently on my birthday. I used my new Canon A85 (Thank you again, my gorgeous wife, for getting my that camera). My good friend Scott remarked that, while he raves about the A85, the macro’s on these things aren’t all that great. the only thing he liked about our friend’s Sony digital camera was the macro. So I practically I had to step up to the plate with my A85, so I proceeded to set the lens on the rim of the glass and snapped this shot. He instantly changed his tune and raved even more.

So, Moxie, an Adult Beverage Carnival? St. Patrick’s Day is a month off. How about starting there? Ideas from readers? What does Adult Beverage include? Everything alcoholic? Beer? Wine? Liquor only?

Update: One caveat to booze blogging is trying to remember every detail as to what happened. I made some edits to the macro discussion above.

Captain Morgan’s Apple Willie. Yes Michelle, it is a great name.

Now that summer is winding down, I am again reminded of why I enjoy living in the warmer region of the US. Summer’s temperatures linger on into Autumn, making it possible to enjoy one of my favorite cocktails for that much longer.

The Mojito. Born in pre-Castro Cuba, it is a refreshing drink that seems to be increasing in popularity. I’ve heard people mention some rather bizarre ingredients for mojitos. (A blender belongs nowhere near a mojito, FYI.) I’ve seen mojito barware sets in Target stores. There’s even mojito rum with lime pre-mixed into the bottle. Here’s the simplest and still best way to mix one: