Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Tequila Sunrise!

A little something orange and strong to celebrate a new day.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Would you like to drink something strong and celebratory for this weekend? Something that makes you think of a new day dawning in America? Would you like it to be orange, and maybe a little bit trashy? Would you like to watch Hooper take an innocent three-ingredient cocktail and overcomplicate the snot out of it? And most importantly, are you feeling a little under the weather, like Hooper’s feeling now, and need some more vitamin C to feel better? Say no more! Hooper’s going to make you a Tequila Sunrise. Here’s the recipe:

Tequila Sunrise

4 oz Simply Orange Mango/Orange Blend

2 oz El Jimador Blanco Tequila

1 oz honey syrup

½ oz lime juice

½ - 1 oz House Grenadine

Shake all ingredients except for the house grenadine and strain into a double old fashioned glass with ice. Using a squeeze bottle, add house grenadine. Gently stir the cocktail to blend the layers.

House Grenadine

1 cup white sugar

1 cup POM pomegranate juice

1 T pomegranate molasses

Heat all ingredients until the sugar dissolves. Store in a plastic squeeze bottle.

The Tequila Sunrise is a very simple drink at its core – tequila, grenadine, and orange juice. The grenadine sinks to the bottom of the glass and blends with the cocktail, creating a very nice “Sunrise” effect. You don’t even have to shake the drink. But at most bars, looks are all this cocktail has going for it. Rose’s Grenadine is corn syrup and red food coloring. Cheap tequila is a headache in a bottle. And then, there’s orange juice.

Orange juice is my least favorite mixer behind the bar. It’s acidic, but not as acidic as lime juice. It’s sweet, but not sweet enough to taste balanced. And the flavor is extremely distinctive, burying most other flavors. To top it off, orange juice can take on unwelcome bitter notes when it’s anything less than fresh. (Yes, the screwdriver is one of my least favorite cocktails.) Orange juice cocktails were big in the fern bar era, and Lord knows this drink is straight from that playbook. The Rolling Stones loved this drink (ref: the Tequila Sunrise and Cocaine Tour . Maybe they loved it a bit too much). But as a rule, modern mixologists loathe orange juice .

Replacing the Rose’s Grenadine with my house version was a good start, but good icing on a bad cake was only going to go so far. We needed to rebuild the core cocktail on top of the grenadine before going farther.

I decided to use a juice blend instead of 100 percent pure orange juice. Mango provided some creamy, mellow notes that tamed the juice’s acidity. Honey syrup was a nice combo flavor, something that both the tequila and the orange agreed with. The lime corrected the acid content, providing just enough bite for the honey syrup to work with. The end result was a rather nice tequila screwdriver – a little on the sweet and simple side, but drinkable.

The house grenadine really turned this cocktail around. Real grenadine is a tartness bomb, giving the drink some real character. It’s also got enough sugar in it to give it a high specific gravity, which you need for layering cocktails. I’m rather pleased with the idea of using a squeeze bottle to layer in the grenadine. Usually, you’d mess around with pouring the grenadine over the back of a spoon to get it into the glass. The squeeze bottle is much simpler.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. I got some satisfaction from drinking this cocktail after this photo was taken. Matthew Hooper 

Simply Orange Orange/Mango Blend: If you’ve got a favorite orange juice blend, feel free to use it. I won’t lose my mind if you decide to use Sunny D, although something with all-natural ingredients is always best. It’s worth noting that Bobby Lozoff, the bartender that introduced Mick Jagger to this drink, used fresh juice.

El Jimador Blanco Tequila: I’ve sung the praises of this tequila before. When I want a pure, crisp agave flavor in my cocktails, this is my tequila of choice. The price point is great, too. Two shots is a bit stiff, but this is the Rolling Stones' cocktail of choice here. Dial it back as needed. Vodka or unaged rum will work here in a pinch.

Honey syrup: Equal parts honey and water, heated until the honey melts. Straight honey is too thick to be shaken or measured into a cocktail properly. I measure out a little honey and water into a glass and microwave it for the sake of convenience.

Lime juice: It’s pretty easy for me to work around lime juice to adjust the sweetness of any drink by now. Play with the quantities to make the drink as sweet or tart as you like. Fresh limes, as always.

House Grenadine: A little splash of orange blossom water here would be welcome. For me, it’s the pomegranate molasses that really makes this work. The extra tartness really takes this ingredient to the next level. It also makes the grenadine so dense that it might not mix with the OJ at all. Give the drink a little stir to make a “sunset” effect, if needed. Use as much grenadine as you like; more is more here.

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below! Seriously, my boss is awesome, if you like reading my recipes please chip in! And if you'd like to buy some bar gear or books from Amazon, please click here! 

OPEN THREAD!