Cocktails

Chipotle Serves Up New Margaritas with Fresh Juices and Premium Tequila

Chipotle has decided to change up its margarita recipe, which was originally made with a sweet-and-sour syrup. According to the chief marketing officer, Mark Crumpacker, not many people knew that Chipotle served margaritas. Starting today, and just in time for Cinco de Mayo, Chipotle offers new han ... More >>

Celebrate National Margarita Day Today with 15 of Our Favorites

For whatever reason, some marketing genius decided that February 22 is National Margarita Day. I can't figure out what significance this day has to margaritas or tequila or Triple Sec or limes. Even the National Margarita Day's web page offers no clues as to why February 22 is so important, leaving ... More >>

Justin Burrow Heads Downtown: New Cocktail Bar Planned for Main Street

The downtown block that already contains classic bars Warren's Inn, Char Bar, Dean's Credit Clothing and Notsuoh is about to get one more watering hole when bartender Justin Burrow opens his new bar in late March. The bar doesn't have a name yet, but Burrow and his partners -- Brad Moore and Ryan Ro ... More >>

Top 5 Low-Cal Margaritas To Try in Houston

In the spirit of a healthy start to the New Year, I'm trying to cut back on excessively sugary beverages. My biggest weakness is margaritas at mainstream bars and restaurants, which tend to use high-calorie commercial mixers. Thankfully, many Houston establishments have jumped on the skinny cocktail ... More >>

More Than Just Nolan Ryan

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Houston's 10 Best Specialty Cocktails for the Summer

With the cocktail movement booming in Houston, it seems as though you can hardly go to a bar or restaurant these days without encountering a list of cocktails. And on that list of cocktails, expect to find a list of the house specialty drinks -- concoctions created by (or for) that bar or restaurant ... More >>

What's Your Signature Cocktail?

Noted food writer and Esquire food critic John Mariani was in Houston recently, only a few months after proclaiming that ours was one of his favorite restaurant cities: "On occasion, when asked what are America's best restaurant cities," he wrote on his personal website, "I have sometimes surprised ... More >>

National Dry Martini Day & My 21st Birthday

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Houston's Top 10 Margaritas

You don't have to wait for Cinco de Mayo to enjoy one of the city's favorite cocktails, but it doesn't hurt to have a few in celebration, either. Just remember to toast the Battle of Puebla (after all, that's what Cinco de Mayo commemorates -- not Mexican Independence Day.) 10. Sorrel Urban Bistro ... More >>

Jose Cuervo Light Margarita

As you might have inferred from recent posts, I have been spending a lot more time in Alexandria, Virginia while my husband finishes a temporary job. With no teaching responsibilities this semester, my schedule has been much more flexible; it's been an exercise in self-discipline to write during th ... More >>

National Margarita Day Is Today, Ash Wednesday, for Some Reason

The people at the National Council for Naming National Days need to get together with the Roman Catholic church, because this seriously isn't going to work out. National Margarita Day on the first day of Lent? Surely you jest, National Margarita Council of Margaritas, National Chapter. But it's not ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 5 Martinis

Photo by Jonathan Cohen​For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston b ... More >>

On the Rocks: Cocktails Named After Musicians for New Year's Eve

Have a G.G. Allin and bring in the New Year indecently!​Everything is more exciting, sometimes even redeeming, when it has a cool name: Sexual acts, alcoholic beverages, movies, albums, etc. OK, maybe just sexual acts and drinks. Since there are thousands of sites that have the former covere ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Margaritas

Photo by Troy FieldsSo many tequilas, so little sobriety to tackle them all...​For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in whic ... More >>

A Chat with Tequila Master Francisco Alcaraz

Photo courtesy Patrón Spirits.Patrón master distiller Francisco Alcaraz has been working with tequila since 1968. He distilled his first tequila for the U.S.-based label Patrón in 1989.​By the time the Eagles released "Tequila Sunrise," the first single from their second album Desperado in ... More >>

Five Cocktails You May Prefer to Mix at Home

Photo by John Kiely​Classic cocktails are called that, not because they're old, but because they are delicious. Most of them can be ordered at any well-stocked bar, and some of them--such as a Negroni, Sazerac, or Martini--can be ordered with swagger. However, there's some classic cocktails ... More >>

Spooky Booze: 5 Creepy Cocktails To Get You In The Halloween Spirit

Ahh, October: the time of year when we head to Frankel's/ Party Boy/ Stripper Depot to find our Halloween costumes, fat orange gourds sit outside at Kroger baking in the Houston sun, and every awful (by awful, I mean awesome) '80s horror movie is on AMC. I love everything about Halloween -- falling ... More >>

Booze: The Southside Mystery

​The Southside cocktail is a quintessential, yet underrated hot weather cooler. It's a refreshingly light mix of gin, mint, lemon or lime, and sweetness, perfect for a summer's evening. The only uncertainty is its birthplace. The most popular claim is that the drink originated in Chicago, durin ... More >>

Top Five: Cheap Booze

​After mastering a tartly correct margarita three years ago, I decided to keep going, and make every classic cocktail that doesn't involve weird liquor. Sixty-nine, so far. As I searched bartending sites, mixology blogs, culinary forums, print stuff and liquor reviews, these bottles of gin, v ... More >>

Martini Night at Ava

www.avaalto.comA chic setting for happy hour.​As if I needed another excuse to indulge in a cocktail or two, I just found out that Ava Kitchen & Whiskey Bar is doing a special promotion on martinis. Every Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m., they have a list of five specialty cocktails to choose from, ... More >>

Eight Alternatives to Frozen Margaritas

Photo by Matthew WettergreenThe Volcano also offers frozen screwdrivers, which are just as tempting.​When I think "summer" in Houston, I also think "margarita." It's a natural thought progression in a city that's oppressively hot in the summer but also blessed with a plethora of great Tex-Mex ... More >>

One Cocktail, Please, Heavy on the Garnish

Anvil. ​When I became interested in cocktails, especially rarer and more creative varieties of mixed drinks, I focused almost entirely on flavor, strength and composition. I judged cosmopolitans on their icy smoothness, sidecars on their subtle orange notes, and corpse revivers on that little ... More >>

The Lost Mojito

​If you've had a cocktail with rum, sugar, lime, soda and spearmint, it was probably called a mojito. That's fine with me -- I'm no cocktail cop -- but that's not what they're drinking in Havana. A Cubano would no more make a spearmint mojito than a Kentuckian would serve up a peppermint jul ... More >>

The Quick and Dirty Juice-a-rita

​The varieties of margaritas are infinite, particularly with people applying the name to any drink containing tequila and some sort of fruit product -- in much the same manner that jackasses add "tini" to any drink served in a cocktail glass (that's the real name for a martini glass, kids). S ... More >>

Vintage Cocktails: The Fine Art of the Daiquiri

It's a fine art indeed.​The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks is a hard-to-find but indispensable cocktail manual first published in 1948. My barstained copy (it was stained before I got to it) came from a southside Houston thrift store and was marked down to $9.95. The out-of-print book now goes on A ... More >>

Baja Bob's Sugar-Free Margarita Mix

​Ever since Bethenny Frankel on the Real Housewives of New York City started peddling the Skinnygirl margarita, I have been curious about low-calorie cocktail. I love me a good mixed drink, but as I generally dislike overly saccharine beverages, I find the average margarita rather cloying. A ... More >>

Stirred & Shaken: Feast's Campari and Soda

Troy Fields ​While my three tablemates at Feast (219 West­heimer, 713-529-7788) were trying to decide on entrées, I was spending quality time with the cocktail menu. The much-lauded rustic European restaurant has assembled a nice list, with Manhattan and martini mainstays, more obscure class ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Maple Leaf

​Why write about a drink whose names suggest such a pro-Canadian agenda in, of all states, Texas? Because right about now, we are probably all wishing we were in Canada. The upcoming weekend in Montreal sounds nice - high of 77 and low of 56. Hell, sitting through a Celine Dion concert, dealin ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: Gin and Tonic

​The gin and tonic is arguably the world's favorite highball. Blissfully botanical gin, bubbly tonic and a squeeze of fresh citrus make for a leisurely, refreshing cocktail that always helps to beat the summer heat. While the drink was a staple of the British colonial era, the gin and tonic i ... More >>

Drinking Your Dinner: 5 Calorie-Laden Classic Cocktails

Photo by coffeegeek​Vintage cocktails are undeniably the booze craze of the moment. Blame it on Mad Men. Blame it on "getting back to our roots" and people starting victory gardens once again. Blame it on books like Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. But classic cocktails are ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Champagne Cocktail

​The champagne cocktail is among the simplest and most enjoyable cocktails around. Those who have never had a champagne cocktail might scoff at the thought of ruining precious champagne with bitters and sugar, but this drink, which has existed for more than 200 years, has plenty to offer. The ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Margarita

​Nobody wants to talk about margaritas on May 6, the day after Cinco de Mayo. However, rather than avoiding discussing the source of the dreaded May 6 hangover, we thought we'd confront the Tex-Mex monster head-on. You can almost smell the lingering stench of artificial margarita mixes and poo ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: Mint Julep, Part 2 - The Julep

​It's almost Derby time, and the anticipation is building. Celebrating the winning horse crossing the finish line, holding a mint julep, and laughing at all the poor suckers who will have to pay up on their harmless $5 bets is among the best feelings one can have as summer slowly creeps toward ... More >>

Picnic Drinks

Photo by Foxarts​Blatantly drinking in the park can be considered taboo and tacky. Additionally, most parks have a no glass bottles rule, so taking anything in besides beer is generally a no-no. Most of us have attempted to skirt this pesky restriction by bringing our own pre-mixed booze with ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Hemingway Daiquiri

​Ernest Hemingway's drinking antics are almost as legendary as his wonderful stories, and it's no coincidence that so many of his stories emerged from the birthplace of so many great cocktails. Hemingway's association with Cuban cocktails became so infamous worldwide, hedonistic American touri ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Kangaroo Cocktail

​The Kangaroo Cocktail is among the most popular cocktails in America; however, it is rarely called by this proper name, which originated when vodka was first being imported. Instead, it is confused with other names and terms and is frequently grouped with adjectives like "dirty" and "bruised. ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Last Word

​Murray Stenson is arguably America's greatest bartender. The man is a legend not only in Seattle, where he mans the bar at Zig Zag Café, but across the country. While the classic cocktail movement has gained in popularity and attention over the past few years, Murray has been making classic ... More >>

Bartender Chat - Katherine Apple of Hearsay

​When we walked in to Hearsay (218 Travis) last Friday night, bar manager Brinton Douglas was preparing to shoot a live segment for WB 39 on the bar's holiday cocktails. Before shooting, though, he was nice enough to take a few minutes to seat our large party. It's not every day that we get to ... More >>

Anvil's 100 List: Cocktails To Try Before You Die

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt Pimm's Cup, No. 68 on Anvil's 100 List​Although only one page long, the list is daunting. Satan's Whiskers, Monkey Gland, Blood & Sand, Corpse Reviver #2, Death in the Afternoon, Widow's Kiss, El Diablo: one could almost mistake the cocktail names for santer ... More >>

A Chat with Reid McGraff of a bar and grille

Photo by Sarah Rufka​Seeing Reid McGraff at the Alden-Houston's a bar and grille -- an affable and friendly bartender, but with a certain polished bearing -- you'd never guess he'd ever tended a less elegant bar. Asked about his past positions, he mentions Hotel ZaZa, House of Blues, Warren's ... More >>

Top 5 Cold Drinks: Alcoholic Version

A lovely, limey caipirinhaA while back we made a list of beverages that hit the spot in hot weather. But we didn't include anything with alcohol the first time. An ice-cold beer usually does the trick, but sometimes a balmy evening calls for a beverage with a muddled ingredient or cocktail umbrella. ... More >>

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