Yesterday was National Margarita Day.

We get lots of pitches—story ideas—from public relations (PR) firms. Their job is to get coverage for their clients’ products. Brands of spirits are always at the ready with cocktails for every celebration: New Year’s, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day, Academy Awards and National Margarita Day—and that’s just in January and February.

One of the things that surprised us about this year’s National Margarita Day pitches was how many tequila companies were calling their recipes a Margarita. The only kinship most had to a Margarita was tequila. Simply adding tequila does not a Margarita make (see the history of the Margarita and the original recipe.)

Margarita ingredients include silver tequila, Cointreau or triple sec (orange liqueur) and lime juice, with a salted rim. So substitute raspberry liqueur for the orange liqueur and call it a Raspberry Margarita. Or use grapefruit juice instead of lime juice and call it a Grapefruit Margarita. Or coat the rim with crushed salted nuts or even pepper (hmm, must try a Pepper Margarita).

But give it some logic!

The Margarita: keeping it real. Photo by
Eugene Bochkarev | BSP.

 
One would really have to question the logic of the people who proposed these “Margarita” recipes. We’ll protect the guilty; but our least favorite contestant was an Apple Margarita mixed from tequila, apple schnapps and cinnamon sticks. No orange liqueur, no lime juice. One might get thrown out of Mexico for insisting it’s a Margarita. No doubt, we’ll be sent the same recipe in October called something like a Harvest Margarita, and again in November as a Pilgrim’s Margarita.

Or hold them for National Tequila Day, July 24th.

Enjoy creative mixology; but don’t call something by a name it’s not, just to get the sale. That’s huckstering.

To show that we’re down with variations, here’s a Guavarita recipe, courtesy of 1800 Silver Tequila. It keeps the structure of the Margarita (tequila, fresh lime juice and fruit liqueur), substituting raspberry liqueur for orange and flavoring the rim. We don’t know why it doesn’t use guava liqueur.

GUAVARITA RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation
1. Rim glasses with sugar.
2. Shake ingredients with ice until chilled and strain into an ice filled.
3. Garnish with a guava slice.

Consider today National Guavarita Day.