A Drink Idea From Me To You: Put Rose Water In Your Margarita

A suggestion.

It’s closed now, but when it was open the East Village restaurant Empellón Cocina offered a rose and hibiscus margarita that came with a rose petal inside and I loved it very much. It was so good and so expensive. It was my favorite cocktail to enjoy, though I think I only ever enjoyed it twice in my life. Nothing pairs with tiny, million-dollar tacos like a forty-thousand-dollar rose and hibiscus margarita, or however much they cost, I forget, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a million and then forty-thousand dollars.

I learned to somewhat recreate the cocktail at home but it never lived up the the restaurant version for reasons that include: 1. a cocktail is never as good when you make it for yourself as when it is made for you by someone else, 2. no rose petal, 3. maybe I was making it wrong, 4. glassware. But I got hibiscus syrup and rose water stuff and put them in there, and it was good. But you know what else is good and less work than that because it’s only one extra ingredient instead of two?

Just the rose water. (Imagine this is in big type like how I sometimes do it.)

Here’s an idea from me to you, if you like rose taste: put rose water in your margarita. It’s perfume-y and a little soapy and rose-y and nice. Remember when I had this idea? I literally just remembered that right now as I was typing, because of how similar this idea is to that idea. I guess I’m very “one-note,” and that note is rose water or rosewater depending on what year I’m typing it in, this one or last one. Anyway. This is a different type of rose water…I think. I think it’s…more concen…trated. I don’t know. Whatever!!!!!!!

Here’s what you do. Buy that rose water and then:

1. Put a little in while you’re making your margarita.

How I make a margarita is 2.5 oz tequila, 1 oz cointreau, 1 oz lime juice, .5 oz orange juice (if I have it). I don’t know if that’s the right way but it tastes good to me. Then I add a few drops of rose water — you only need a little bit. Let’s say .2 oz, if you must measure it. Then you shake it up. Then you put some rose water on your finger and move it around the rim of your glass, then you dip the rim of your glass in salt. Then you pour the drink and the ice into the glass.

Then you have a rose margarita. It’s nice to enjoy on a summer night — or a summer day (I’m not judging). It tastes good. It makes you feel a little happier than before, but then the next morning you feel a little more sluggish. A give and take. That’s life.

Thanks,

Kelly