Friends, if your weekend was as drab and colorless as mine, then get excited: Whitney’s Spicy Margarita Monday is here. Alas, as margarita making often goes, there was more socializing and margarita making involved this weekend than there were pictures.
Spicy Margaritas are a really easy thing to mess up. My love of all things spicy and hot (as evidenced by the 3 bottles of hot sauce in my desk drawer) does not mean that I love hot sauce in my drink. That’s just gross. It tastes muddy. If you’ve been victim to a muddy mess of a spicy margarita, don’t lose hope! You can make your own just by making a regular margarita with the addition of your very own home made jalepeno syrup (don’t be a spice wimp, just try it).
There is a serious reason they call it “simple syrup” …it’s really easy. Here’s what you need:
- Saucepan
- equal parts water & sugar (hint: I used 2 cups each and it made way too much)
- a whole lotta peppers (I used 2 poblanos, 3 jalepenos, and 3 red chili peppers)
Chop up your peppers into pieces (not too small) and leave the seeds (that’s the good part). Boil your water. Once your water is boiling, add sugar until it’s totally dissolved. When your sugar is dissolved, remove from heat. Then add in your peppers and let them soak for a while.
After about 10-ish minutes, I poured my pepper-laden syrup into some jars I had leftover from our jam-making adventure. Usually, it’s supposed to take a few days for the spicy goodness to seep into the syrup only guess what? I never plan that far ahead. Instead, I just shook the jars vigorously every 5-10 minutes or so. After about 2 hours, I got a little impatient and used it in my normal margarita recipe (it’s at the bottom).
Anyway, here’s what my cute little jars looked like filled with spicy syrup:
My recipes always turn out to be one of those “add stuff till it’s good” kinds of things, but here’s the basic jist:
- Equal parts Tequila and Triple Sec
- Lime Juice (I use the bottled stuff because who loves squeezing tons of fresh limes? No one.)
- Ginger Ale
- Spicy Syrup
- *Optional: Orange Juice
Add all that stuff together until it tastes good and mix it all up. Make sure to strain out the peppers, though.
See? Never have a disgusting margarita again. There’s no excuse.
whitstuart 