The fundamentals of a traditional margarita leave little to the imagination. Tequila, triple sec (Cointreau), lime juice, crushed ice, salt and a wedge of lime is all it takes. Salt the rim of a glass, shake everything up and garnish it with the lime. They sometimes differ in potency, but really they are all pretty much the same. They don’t let bartenders show off their finesse.
On May 22, however, a contest at Azteka restaurant united bartenders from most of Kyiv’s Latino restaurants, challenging them to make the tastiest creative margarita. Tequila House, Azteka, Barcelona, Chico’s and the mysterious Planet Z all sent representatives. Conspicuously absent were contestants from Arizona and Desperados. A member of the Kyiv Post’s Best Of Team, never one to miss out on free drinks, sat on the jury.
The rules of the game were pretty hazy. As long as the drink had ice, tequila and a dash of lime juice, it qualified as a margarita. One entry was shockingly similar to a strawberry daiquiri sans rum. Another original cocktail, while beautifully sculpted out of a pineapple, salted with flakes of coconut and complete with tropically colored plastic flourishes, just didn’t have the sourness it takes to be a good margarita.
Actually, sampling so many variations of the drink helped us define more concretely what makes a good margarita. Trying the assortment, which varied in sweetness, fruitiness, color and shape, forced us to re-evaluate what is – and is not – acceptable.
Ultimately, we came up with the following standards, which even the most radical interpretation must conform to in order to be worthy of the name margarita. Fruit is a good thing, but it should never be applied so generously as to conceal the inherent liminess of the drink. Sourness is fundamental to a good margarita. The salty rim is a bad thing, but it needs to be put up with anyway. Tradition is tradition, after all. And, finally, bartenders get points for doing that maraca thing when shaking the drink up.
When faced with the vote, we (and the other judges) ended up siding with a fairly traditional interpretation of a margarita. Tequila House’s Volodya made an excellent version called the nezhnyi kreker. While he won no points for the stupid name (it is enigmatically named after a popular children’s cracker), the taste was voted unanimously the best.
His drink combined fresh bananas with the traditional ingredients in a blender (sorry, no maracas), making a margarita smoothie. Importantly, he did not overdo the fruit component, thus maintaining the tartness for which margaritas are known. Also, he wasn’t tempted by jazzy-looking, colored liqueurs that look good but only serve to convolute the drink’s taste. Now, the only thing left for Tequila House to do is add the drink to their menu. Right now, they offer only traditional and blue margaritas. We here at the Post suggest that, since they got it, they ought to flaunt it.
