Cinco de Mayo: Celebrate in Style with Maestro Dobel Tequila

With May on its way, it is time to consider how best to celebrate this yearly fiesta. But first, some historical background so that you’ll know what you’re celebrating. Cinco de Mayo originally commemorates the unlikely victory of Mexican army over the invading French troops on May 5^th 1862. Yet the holiday has become more significant in the US than it is in Mexico.

In fact, the Gringo version of Cinco de Mayo is very much a cry of American patriotism. Latinos in America at this time used the French defeat as a rallying cry for the Union’s victory in the American Civil War. The French supported the Confederacy and Hispanics supported the Union’s fight for equality, the French defeat became an important moment for Hispano-Americans across the USA.

The date, then, marks an ideal combination between Mexican and American ideologies. What better way to mark the day than with a combination of Mexico’s greatest export, tequila, and America’s best alcoholic innovation – the cocktail? And of course the ideal mix of these is the classic margarita.

Cocktail culture soon spread from turn-of-the-century New York to all corners of the globe and of course south of the border. Legend has it that in 1941, bartender Don Carlos Orozco created the drink for Margarita Henkel, the daughter of a German Ambassador at the Hussong’s Cantina in Ensenada Mexico.

Wherever it came from the Margarita is essentially a variation on the Daisy, a popular Prohibition era cocktail, replacing Brandy with Tequila. Unlike the Daiquiri (2oz rum, ¾ oz lime, ¾ simple syrup) the Daisy contains a modifying agent – in the case of the margarita it is traditionally Cointreau or other orange liqueurs.

The classic margarita recipe is:

– 1 ½ oz Tequila

– ½ oz Cointreau

– 1 oz of fresh lime juice

The ingredients are poured into a cocktail shaker, firmly shaken and poured into a salt-rimmed glass, on the rocks or not it’s your choice.

Maestro Dobel Tequila offers some exciting variations on this cocktail classic. Try some of these out in your own Cinco de Mayo celebrations and remember to toast the defeat of the French!