Friday, January 27, 2012

Conquistador

PDT Interview
Personal Preferences: Date nite, vacation-ready!
Style of Drink: up & cold,
Spirit of Choice: tequila!
Last Drink: Manhattan

The Partner is well again!  So on a Friday night, that means ... DATE NITE!  We reserve Friday nights just for us.  Sometimes we go out and burn it at both ends -- happy hour, dinner, clubbing, come home with the dawn.   Sometimes we order in and watch a movie on Netflix or a Fringe or Top Chef on our TiVo playlist or pop in a Battlestar DVD.  Sometimes it's all of the above.  Whatever it is, though, it's just us time.  No friends, no family.  But with him being under the weather so much lately, Date Nite's kinda been Lame Nite.  But not tonight!

At this writing, we're 2 days, 23 hours & 35 minutes away from an 11-day Caribbean cruise (but who's counting).  So I was definitely in the mood for something Margaritaesque.  The fact that the evening's plan called for carry-out from one of our favorite neighborhood Mexican joints made tequila imperative.  (Well, that and it was DATE NITE!!!).  Since restocking the bar I've been like a little kid who's rediscovered an old toy.  Luckily, some nice Don Julio was restocked.  Of the many tequila drinks in PDT, I settled on the Conquistador.  Meehan says that this was conceived as "a 'mellow' tequila drink that retained the spirit's vegetable notes". I thought it sounded like an interesting riff on the venerable marg that would compliment dinner, set the mood for the evening, and not repeat a bev.

The first sip was a popping surprise.  A real wow in the mouth.  An unusual but very enjoyable combination of dry and fruity.  Almost grassy -- in a good way.  The egg white gave it a unifying smoothness.

In the span of time it took me to draw my first sip and a half and think the above sentences, I hear, "Oh wow...Tastes like a margarita!"  I look and there's a visible dent in The Partner's previously filled glass.

"You better make another one.  I'm almost ready."

My eyebrow arches, Spock-like.

"Hey,  Take that as a compliment!".

The Conquistador went down super-easy, with a chicken quesadilla app and some bonus nachos that made it into our carry-out, unorded.  As I watched Padma prance across our plasma, dispensing the Quick Fire Challenge coup de grace, I notice The Partner looking at me.  Awww...a little Date Nite love eye.  I start to smile warmly in return.  But it's not the love eye.  It's just the eye, looking at me... then looking at his (nearly) empty glass... then at me... then at the bar... then at me.  I shake my head incredulously.

"Hey," says he playfully, "usually I don't like 'em and you're like 'let's have another' and I'm like, 'ugh...o-kaaay'.  But I like these!  KEEP 'EM COMIN'!"

So that we did through dinner, paired nicely with burrito suizo and chicken enchiladas en mole.

I love Date Nite.

Conquistador
1 oz. rum
1 oz. blanco tequila
¾ oz. simple syrup
½ oz. lemon juice
½ oz. lime juice
2 dashes orange bitters
1 egg white

Dry-shake, then shake with ice and strain into a chilled egg coupe*.  No garnish.

*We don’t own egg coupes, so we enjoyed ours from a cocktail glass.

1 comment:

  1. i read this and i walked away from the computer and made killer guac. wish i had this to go with it! sounds delicious!

    ReplyDelete

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