September 16, 2014

The Original Margarita Festival

The Cosmopolitan hosted the annual Original Margarita Festival. Mixologists from all over the valley compete to win best margarita. Last year, the title went to the Velveteen Rabbit. This year's event had 25 competitors. Admission was $40 and included all you can drink margarita samples. I was fortunate to win tickets from Yelp.

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It felt like a hot summer night at the Boulevard Pool. Thankfully, there were plenty of margaritas to help keep cool. Although, chile peppers were the theme of the night. Many drinks were laced with spiciness from jalapenos, hatch chiles and even ghost peppers. The margaritas themselves might make you sweat.

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The Cosmopolitan posted the recipes in case you'd like to learn more about the concoctions.

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I only missed trying two: Amerigo Di Firenze and Mamacita's Margarita. The latter was attempted, but they were having technical difficulties while attempting to impress judges. The former was completely overlooked, I missed their set up. There were many margaritas that weren't too our liking, but it was still fun to try them all. The contenders for our favorite were She Loves Me Not, Pumpkin Zen Passion, Honey Salt Tangerine, Beso Del Diablo, J & J Spicy Honey Brown and the Amazonarita.

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The one I'd love to try again was the She Loves Me Not, with Tanteo Jalapeno Tequila, sunflower heart, and pineapple puree. They earned my wooden chip; we left before votes were tallied and the winner was announced. I've seen no mention of the winner yet today... maybe someone is nursing a hangover? At any rate, it was a neat event to showcase our local talent.

1 comment:

KathyinNY said...

That sounds so cool! I love to hear your stories.