It starts as a taunt, some good-natured teasing.
To poke fun at our grown-up son, Alex, in cold-and-snowy Kelowna, we text him a photo of every margarita we drink here in sunny Mexico.
It’s a jeer that we’re in paradise and he’s not.
Don’t worry, he does the same to us when the shoe is on the other foot.
Anyway, since my wife, Kerry, and my foray in Mexico is a long-stay of 33 days in San Jose del Cabo, the photos become numerous.
At least 33 and, somewhat shockingly (embarrassingly), more.
Oh well, we do it under the guise of documenting evidence.
So, we made it a research project – the quest for the perfect margarita in Cabo, the tourist enclave here at the very southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
It’s an absolutely unscientific undertaking.
We just drink and snap wherever we are – at our rented condominium at Lomas de la Jolla; in the infinity pool at said condo; at Mariscos La Carreta restaurant in San Jose del Cabo; at our favourite restaurant (Angler's Landing) perched over the marina in Cabo San Lucas; at Eco-Bar, at the same marina; at Zipper’s beachfront resto; at Mama Mia’s restaurant also on the sand at the Coral Baja Resort; at Latino 8 in San Jose’s hotel zone; at the Drunken Sailor bar in San Jose’s marina; and the clubhouse and beach club of Querencia Golf.
Every margarita we had was sweet, sour and salty delicious, so it’s hard to crown the perfect one.
But, if forced, I’d declare a tie between my own home-made marg sipped while admiring the view of the Sea of Cortez in the infinity pool at Lomas and the marg at Angler’s Landing overlooking the marina in Cabo San Lucas that comes in a terrifically tacky glass with a cactus stem.
That’s our cue to talk about the glass a margarita is served in.
A lot of bars and restaurants now simply use an all-purpose tumbler.
But, obviously, the margarita-specific glass is best.
In true Mexican style, the wide shallow bowl of the glass on a stem resembles an upturned sombrero, the wide-brimmed Mexican hat.
The thing about a margarita is it’s naturally idyllic in Mexico, but it can also make you feel like you’re on a tropical holiday if you order it at a bar in Kelowna, Victoria, Kamloops, Penticton, Vernon or Prince George.
Before we get any farther, let’s talk about the actual margarita – Mexico’s top cocktail made of the country’s national drink, tequila.
While it’s indubitably linked with Mexico, some would say the margarita is one of the most popular cocktails in the world, if not THE most popular cocktail on Earth.
The margarita tends to always be in the top 5, if not number one, of every favourite drinks list along with the martini, Old Fashioned, mojito and Negroni.
The margarita’s icy cold, sweet, sour and salty allure is deceptively simple, an easy-to-remember 2:1:1 ratio of just three ingredients.
Two ounces of white (sometimes they call it silver) tequila, one ounce of orange liqueur (in Mexico it tends to be Controy brand, but it could also be Cointreau, Grand Marnier or Triple Sec) and one ounce of fresh-squeezed lime juice.
You can add a splash of simple or agave syrup if you like your margarita a little sweeter.
Toss in a cocktail shaker with ice and have at it.
Strain this magical elixir into a margarita glass with more ice, rimmed with salt and garnished with a lime slice.
This is generally the way Mexicans make it and serve it.
However, you’re all probably familiar with the frozen margarita – made with lots of ice in a blender.
There’s no right way or wrong way to drink a margarita, so simply go with your preference.
The origin of the margarita is murky.
Several people claim to have invented the magic drink.
The most enduring is that in 1936, Danny Negrete created the cocktail for his girlfriend, Margarita (which is Spanish for Daisy), who liked salty drinks, while he was manager at the Hotel Garci Crespo in Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t close this story out with a salute to Jimmy Buffett’s 1977 smash hit ‘Margaritaville’.
The party song continues to propel the cocktail into our consciousness with its humourous portrayal of paradise and the incredibly catchy lyrics we all know.
For instance, from verse 3: But there’s booze in the blender, And soon it will render, That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.
And, of course, the banger of a third chorus: Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville, Searchin’ for my long lost shaker of salt, Some people claim there’s a woman to blame, But I know, It’s my own damn fault.
WestJet flies non-stop, four-and-a-half hours between Kelowna International Airport and Los Cabos International Airport twice-weekly on Saturdays and Tuesdays, seasonally until April 26.
WestJet also does Victoria-Los Cabos weekly on Mondays, seasonally until April 21.
WestJet Vacations also packages flights with all-inclusive resort stays in Los Cabos.
Check out: https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/vacations
