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My Friend (Uncle) Mark And The Margarita

An easy drink to make wrong. Learn a right way.

This is Mark. He’s one of my favorite people in the whole world and one of three Uncles of mine in California that aren’t really. And this is his puppy Sophie.

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Mark makes a mean-ass margarita. Has for years. It’s a tradition at this point in the Oakland hills. And trust, I’m not the biggest margarita drinker. That is because I am always disappointed when I’m given a pint or rocks glass full of sugar and rose’s lime. Ick. I like my margaritas to smack of tequila and pack a punch. His recipe is based around those beliefs and a couple of stiff ones in collins glasses he knocked back at a little spot near 51st and Telegraph in Oakland.

“A number of years ago at Doña Tomas I needed help getting off the barstool when our table was ready after a couple of them.” Mark told me. Later on he started getting César Chávez Day off as a city employee, he found the restaurante’s recipe and riffed his own off of it focusing on potency and fresh flavor.

César Chávez Day is March 31 and over the years it has coincided with the floating jewish holiday of passover. Any MOT will tell you, a proper seder (passover dinner), is a treat. The yearly gathering of my family in the Oakland hills to rush through the prayers for the multiple required (as in mandatory) glasses of wine scheduled throughout the meal is a good old time. With the alignment of the holidays margaritas have been a staple at seder and these days it is a real sheeyit-show.

When making a margarita–in my mind–you gotta shake the hell out of it in terms of the time you spend shaking, not the strength of which you shake. Pay no audible attention for a ricochet and while your arm tires, remember, the more you shake, the more of that nice froth you get.