Josh’s Signature Pomegranate Margaritas
If you come to my house for a visit and request a drink, chances are it’s going to be one of my husband Josh’s (in)famous pomegranate margaritas. They couldn’t be simpler to make, and they always, always, ALWAYS hit the spot!
We began our journey to margarita nirvana in our old neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There was the best Mexican restaurant nearby named Cafe Frida, and their Hibiscus Margaritas were to die for! We went at least once a week for dinner. It was one of those places where you got to know the people who worked there, and they got to know us. Unfortunately, Cafe Frida has since closed (probably because we moved to LA!), but the company that owned it has created a new concept in its space called Covacha. New Yorkers: please give me the lowdown on the joint, if you’ve been!
Because we loved the margs at Cafe Frida so much, we began tinkering with recipes to get the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and boozy. While I did purchase hibiscus flowers to make REAL hibiscus margaritas, we found that our version made with pomegranate juice was just as good, if not better. And pouring from a bottle of juice we can buy at any supermarket is a helluva lot easier!
Pomegranate juices vary widely in both taste and color. Over the years, we’ve learned that most of the organic pomegranate juices make a kind of muddy-looking cocktail—more brown than they are magenta. Conversely, the ubiquitous Pom Wonderful brand imbued a stunning shade of fuchsia to the cocktail, but also made it absurdly sweet. The brand that we keep going back to is the R.W. Knudsen ‘Just Pomegranate’ Juice (NOT the organic one—gasp!). The R.W. Knudsen is the perfect combo of tart and sweet, with a generally pinkish color.
The tequila and orange liqueur choices are completely up to you. Listen, we’ve made these with tippity-top shelf tequila, and with plastic bottle gasolina. Both were still good. My take: don’t use your ABSOLUTE BEST stuff for these, but use something good enough to sip on its own. We tend to go back to Herradura Blanco, El Tesoro, and even the Kirkland Brand Añejo Tequila. In terms of the orange liqueur, our favorites tend to lean towards the dryer side, like Cointreau, Dry Curacao, and Mathilde XO. If you’re using a (in my opinion) sweeter orange liqueur like Grand Marnier or other type of Triple Sec, you may want to reduce the amount for each marg a smidge.
Josh’s Signature Pomegranate Margaritas
1 cocktail
INGREDIENTS:
2 ounces Tequila
2 ounces Pomegranate Juice
½ ounce Orange Liqueur (preferably Cointreau)
Juice of half a lime
METHOD:
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add tequila, pomegranate juice, orange liqueur, and lime juice. Shake. Pour (with ice) into a glass. Garnish with lime wheel.
1 Pitcher (6 cocktails)
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups Tequila
1 ½ cups Pomegranate Juice
⅓ cup Orange Liqueur (preferably Cointreau)
Juice of 3 limes
Method:
Stir together tequila, pomegranate juice, orange liqueur, and lime juice in a pitcher.
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, and add the desired amount of margarita from the pitcher. Shake. Strain into glasses filled with ice. Garnish with lime wheels.
*Notes
Pomegranate juices vary widely in terms of sweetness and color. We have tasted almost all of them, and our favorite is the “R.W. Knudsen Just Pomegranate Juice” (not organic). If using a brand like Pom Wonderful, you may want to use less, because it’s sweeter.
