The Frozen Margarita

The day began with three plastic bags lobbed onto a desk.

"I'm so sorry, Cait." My beautiful new co-worker L had just arrived at the office, lugging an array of shopping bags. 

"Mr. Insight asked me to give these to you." 

She dropped the plastic bags on my desk with a sigh. She was still friends with Mr. Insight, but nonetheless was not exactly enjoying her role as ping-pong ball in our table-tennis play-offs.

I poked at the nearest shopping bag. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, all three were emblazoned. They were packed tight, and the final O on the bag nearest my hand spread wide, its double-width berth rippling into the remaining space like a fat man on the subway.

"Ah yes," I thought. "Thank you."

My belongings. Everything I had left at Mr. Insight's place back when we were dating. I had chosen each item so strategically at the time, selecting each piece to leave behind as a sign of our permanence, as insurance against abandonment.

I stuffed the three bags under my desk. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Any plans tonight?" I asked L.

"Well," she kept typing, "we have guests in town, so something."

My foot brushed the taut plastic lurking underneath me.

"But I'm not sure what yet," she continued.

The bags swayed towards my ankles.

"Maybe something in the village..." Her voice trailed off, as she considered her options.

I crossed my legs. The bags toppled onto my toes.

"Margaritas!" I shouted.

Surprised at my vigor, L looked over. I was standing, my legs kicking the dark space underneath my desk. I looked like a maniac. Perhaps I was one.

"Yes." She clipped her sentence as the word blossomed into knowing laughter. 

"Just please don't bring the bags."

"Margarita" is the Latin word for "pearl," the Spanish word for "daisy," and the American word for "fuck this shit and these damn plastic bags." More than a few stories exist about how the drink was first created, and while the place of origin shifts from Jaurez to Tijuana, from Galveston to El Paso, the inspiration remains the same: a beautiful girl who has a taste for something new.

Damn all these beautiful girls, they only wanna do you dirt.

Both Peggy Lee and Rita Heyworth are cited as the Margarita's muse, though neither were quite cold enough to inspire the frozen version. For that, we owe a chemist in Dallas, John Hogan, and his infatuation with the sweetest temptress of all: cane sugar. 

As far as making a margarita for your own sweetheart, keep it cheap. The salted rim is an old trick to hide the taste of low-quality liquor, so save your money and take your drink with a grain of salt. You know, much like the way you'll take home those damn plastic bags, when you finally suck it up, stop kicking the darkness, and walk out into the light of a stunning new day.

THE FROZEN MARGARITA

3 oz. white tequila

1 oz. triple sec

2 oz. fresh lime juice

1 cup crushed ice

blend all ingredients until smooth

garnish with a slice of lime and a salted rim

serve in a margarita glass

The Cuba Libre Light

The first drink I ever ordered was a Cuba Libre. I was seventeen, in Barcelona for the first time, and completely innocent to the allure of alcohol. Ah, youth; how you melt like Spanish ice cubes in my first-time highball glass.

One thing about those Spanish ice cubes :: when you are seventeen, in Barcelona for the first time and completely innocent to the allure of alcohol, and you've been told by your awesome Grand Tour Coach Captain that you cannot (under any circumstances) drink the water in Spain, well, you down that sweet, syrupy cocktail in three big gulps. Before the ice cubes even sweat, let alone melt, you've got a whole lot of Libre in your mouth. Let alone on Las Ramblas...

The Cuba Libre was originally invented in 1900 in Havana by the Spanish. In the time of the Spanish-American war, the Spaniards raised their glass (and lowered their inhibitions) to celebrate Cuba's freedom. Eventually the drink became a favorite of American ex-pats fleeing the prohibition and uptight Progressive values of their motherland, looking to find a new identity in an island fresh-cut from colonial ties.

Oh, Libre's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Which brings me to why I'm back on the blog. I'm single again. Footloose and fancy-free, and I suddenly find I have a fair amount of time to wax poetic on the well-mixed drink. And while I have walked into my share of speakeasies during the past three months, I've spent the past eight days (ah, the abacus of brand-new singledom) laying a little lower than usual. Sometimes you need a vacation... and sometimes that vacation is a post-breakup Cuba Libre Light in my tiny studio apartment.

Was it as good as the very first sip? Of course not. But did I take the time to savor it slowly, letting the ice melt and the growing cold compliment the sweetness? You betcha.

Older. Wiser. Libre. Welcome to another summer in New York, a girl like you in a place like this.

THE CUBA LIBRE LIGHT

1 1/2 oz. light rum

juice of 1/2 a lime

6 oz. diet coke

stir well and garnish with a slice of lime

serve in a highball glass filled with ice

Sweet Home Greenwich Village :: Thunder Jackson's

You rarely see hot girls in TV ads for forty-ounce bottles of malt liquor. In fact, you rarely see TV ads for forties at all. This is because your average forty-drinker knows that even a crap TV set is worth quite a few non-ironic forties.                    

Why, then, are forties poised to become the newest eau-de-vie of the Sullivan-Bleecker set? Especially when Thunder Jackson’s, the bar selling the bottles for $12 (roughly four non-ironic forties worth), also has some of the best specialty cocktails in town? Yes, as a self-confessed “urban road-house,” Thunder Jackson’s hems and haws, offering both forties and cocktails, of which the cocktails are, shocking as this is, a whole lot better tasting.

Yet, for all its up-market, down-home references, Thunder Jackson’s isn’t nearly as offensive as one might expect. In fact, after watching Michelle the bartender make impeccable Palmyras (a $12 mojito-martini hybrid) while simultaneously giving the crowd a lesson in chemistry, you realize you’ve rediscovered East Side Company Bar by way of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. This isn’t quite Faulkner’s Ole Miss — Mark Twain would storm out without a single Mint Julep — but, in the here and now, NYU locals should kiss Thunder Jackson’s sawdust-free ground (or at least feel quietly thankful). Sure, Thunder’s authenticity is reconstituted and occasionally ridiculous, but its cocktails are as well-crafted as any in bars with ten times more pretension and a hundred times less spirit.

Unlike NYC’s trendy, tight-lipped speakeasies, Thunder’s allows you to order a beer without inciting a mixologist’s ire; if you don’t have the palate for the homemade grenadine or the smoothest New Old Fashioned you’ll ever drink (shame on you!), Thunder’s has $6 pints of imported drafts like Bass and Blue Moon and $5 domestics, including Blue Point.

By the time Michelle mounts the bar to light a shot of liquor on fire (and, naturally, spit the trail of flaming liquid across the room — seriously), you may feel it’s time to try the bar food. Chef Ian Russo earned early buzz for Thunder’s ribs, steak and burger (served with truffle mayo). For the omnivore, try the phyllo-strewn Big Crispy Shrimp ($3 each) and the Apple Tart ($8).

This bar food will cost you a bit more at Thunder’s than at your ‘Bama dive, but then again, so will the forty. This way, though, you won’t have to pass out on the street to call it a night. But even if you do end up blacked out on Bleecker, Michelle will watch over you as you sleep, spitting a wreath of Southern Comfort flames to protect you. Well, not really. But it’s not impossible.

THUNDER JACKSON'S :: 169 Bleecker St. at Sullivan St., New York, New York