Cocktails and Spirits with Paul Clarke: Taking the Tarnish off Tequila

Posted by Paul Clarke, July 22, 2009 at 3:00 PM

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For a spirit that's earned a reputation over the decades as a skull-thumping, inhibition-be-gone, regret-inducing, everyone-gone-wild kind of drink, tequila is getting a lot of respectable love nowadays. And as Jonathan Miles wrote in last weekend's New York Times, and as I wrote in the August issue of Wine & Spirits, bartenders are increasingly turning to tequila in their pursuit of new frontiers for mixological exploration.

It's been a long time coming. Mostly absent from American bars until the second half of the 20th-century, tequila quickly became a hard-partying kind of drink, and all sorts of alcoholic indiscretions have been blamed on the fiery spirit. As Miles describes it, until recently, "Tequila specials were like petri dishes for misdemeanors." But starting in the late 1990s and picking up steam in the past few years, bartenders and spirits aficionados have embraced the flavor of agave, first on its own in a rapidly expanding line of blancos, reposados, anejos, and extra anejos, and more recently in craft cocktails that bear about as much resemblance to a slushy machine-made margarita as an iPhone does to a tin can with a string hanging out of it.

Helping to lead the charge are bartenders such as Phil Ward and Mayur Subbarao at the East Village bar Mayahuel, perhaps the first bar dedicated primarily to the creation of adventurous cocktails based on tequila (and on tequila's cousin mescal, itself stained with the memories of countless college misadventures). With drinks such as the jalapeno-tinged Watermelon Sugar or the Italian Inquisition, made with Italian amaro and a blood-orange liqueur, Mayahuel is introducing customers to the breadth of flavor and character that agave spirits can bring to a cocktail. This growing interest in tequila isn't limited to New York; bartenders such as Ryan Fitzgerald in San Francisco and Robert Heugel in Houston are digging deeper into the spirit's characteristics and are taking tequila cocktails to a new level far removed from that of the typical margarita.

This tequila exploration is taking place across the country. Have you encountered it in some of your favorite watering holes? What are some tequila drinks that have improved your opinion of the spirit that's fueled so many hazily remembered spring-break experiences?

About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.

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Tags: alcohol, cocktails, drinks, tequila