Posts tagged ‘Bar Basics’
No, No, No Jose Cuervo: Counsel From The Bar At Bix, San Francisco
While hanging at the bar at Bix in San Francisco, our Bar Tender, explained a few tequila tips to me:
- The first was never to use Jose Cuervo Tequila because it has sugar in it.
- Second, only use tequila made with 100 percent Agave
- Third, if you are mixing a margarita, in his opinion, only use tequila blanco–or the clear stuff. He said more expensive tequilas get lost in the mix.
The margarita served at Bix was tasty with a zing of lime. It had a fresher, lighter taste than a richer, sweeter margarita. Great for a summer night.
It’s All Orange To Me!
You say Cointreau, I say Grand Marnier? It’s all orange to me. Really, what’s the diff? Here are some orange liqueurs and their descriptions from Wikipedia:
- Triple Sec is an orange-flavored liqueur.It is widely used in mixed drinks and recipes as a sweetening and flavoring agent. Better-quality brands are made from brandy or Cognac and often sipped alone, typically as a digestif.Some brands are colorless (or nearly colorless) while others have the golden coloration of their brandy base. It is made from the dried peel of oranges found on Curaçao, an island in theCaribbean.
- Cointreau (pronounced [kwan'-tro]) is a brand of triple sec liqueur, and produced in Saint-Barthélemy-d’Anjou, a suburb of Angers, France. Cointreau sources its bitter oranges from all over the world, usually Spain, Brazil and Saint-Raphaël, Haiti.[1][2]In addition to being imbibed as an apéritif, Cointreau is sometimes used as a digestif. Cointreau is considered to be either a premium brand triple sec or a unique category of liqueur. With a 40% alcohol content, Cointreau is strong for a triple sec which usually has an alcohol content around 23%.[1]
- Grand Marnier (gʀã maʀnje) is a liqueur created in 1880 by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle. It is a kind of triple sec, made from a blend of true cognacs and distilled essence of Bitter orange. Grand Marnier is 40% alcohol (80 proof). It is produced in several varieties, most of which can be consumed “neat” as a digestif and can be used in mixed drinks and desserts.
