Posted by johngl
It’s cherry season in the great State of Washington and the most glorious spousal unit and I picked up about three pounds of them earlier this afternoon while wandering the aisles at Costco. Somehow, eight bottles of wine worked their way into our cart as well. I’m not quite sure how that happens.
Anyway, back to the cherries. When you buy this many at once, you kind of put yourself in the position of figuring out what to do with them. I decided that a cherry flavored margarita wouldn’t be a bad thing.
And I wasn’t wrong.
Costco’s prices were fully $2.30/lb less than the pricing I saw at my local grocers. It might have something to do with Costco being based out of Washington, but it doesn’t really matter. I like fresh cherries and I only buy the ones grown in the USA. Consequently, this is a once a year treat for me. When the season is over, they are gone until next year.
And so I found myself pitting cherries.
This little device comes in handy. It pits both olives and cherries. I like olives stuffed with bleu cheese or anchovies, and I think olives with the pits still in them taste better than the pre-pitted ones, so this tool gets used more frequently for the green rather than the red.
I seem to be having some trouble staying focused. It must be that margarita I drank.
I pitted a cupful of cherries.
Now, and I want to make this clear, I already have two blenders (KitchenAid and Cuisinart), a large scale food processor (KitchenAid), two mini processors (both Cuisinart), and no less than three spice grinders (actually coffee grinders that I use as spice grinders). I needed this thing like a hole in my foot.
Luckily, it was less than half the price of the eight bottles of wine. And it is the deluxe version. What a deal!
There I was, feeling a bit like that SlapChop guy Vince, (minus the mic), wanting to come up with some nonsensical rhyme to recite whilst loading up the bullet (cherry, berry, fairy, Mary came to mind):
So, how well did the bullet work?
Well, a few ten second pulses is all it took. In less than a minute, I had about a cup of cherry puree, which I strained to remove the skin particulates. Nothing ruins a drink like skin particulates. They get all up in your teeth and make you look like you have a nasty problem with cavities.
I was getting all ready to mix up the drinks when I realized that I didn’t have any simple syrup. I also didn’t have any of my favorite kind of lime juice either: Stirrings® Clarified Key Lime. However, I did have a full bag of fresh key limes in the wine cellar. This was turning into quite the little project. I just wanted a drink for Pete’s sake (I don’t know any Petes, so why did I say that?).
I juiced all of these little devils and got roughly 13 oz of strained juice. There was a lot of lime detritus after the exercise.
Looking at the ingredients of the Stirrings product, the second ingredient is cane sugar. I had cane sugar, but I also have agave nectar. Agave nectar is actually a little sweeter than sugar (by volume) and since I was planning on using this stuff in a cactus-based drink, it somehow seemed fitting. I heated the lime juice, then added about a cup of agave nectar and stirred it in until it was fully incorporated. Now I had simple lime syrup!
I filled up an empty Stirrings bottle with my own blend and popped it in the fridge. There was a little leftover, easily enough for my drinks.
So, finally, I could actually make the damn drinks. I grabbed some tequila. This was the only clear tequila I had. Oh well.
For two drinks:
1 cup cherry puree
3 oz Tequila (El Tesoro Platinum)
2 oz simple lime syrup
1 1/2 oz Cointreau
Put ice in a shaker.
Add cherry puree and all of the rest of the ingredients. Shake well!
Dispense, straining out the ice, and garnish with lime slices.
Pretty, no?
I don’t always drink Cherry Margaritas, but when I do, they are home made.
Stay thirsty my friends.
[...] Cherry Margarita « The Alcoholian [...]
Looks like a great summer drink to me! Hope you are doing well John!
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