Fresh Strawberry Margaritas

The other day I went strawberry picking for the first time in years. I purchased my carton and was determined to get as many strawberries as possible. They were everywhere -- ripe, juicy, perfect strawberries. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I moseyed along the fields adding and adding to my box until it was completely full of the most beautiful strawberries you've ever seen.

I ended up with 12lbs. I realized shortly after leaving that piling fresh strawberries on top of one another meant the bottom ones ended up bruised (rookie mistake).

I froze some for smoothies, used some for ice cream, made cupcakes and muffins, and then decided the rest needed to go into making strawberry margaritas.

I was at dinner a month or so ago and somehow the waitress and I got to talking about soaking strawberries in tequila. I'm a fan of all fruit/alcohol combinations, so this idea was right up my alley. If you soak them in tequila for long enough, you can strain the strawberries and have delicious homemade strawberry tequila. If you really love tequila I guess you could also eat the soaked berries plain, but I wasn't feeling up for that. I decided that I would use my fresh, bursting with flavor strawberries to make strawberry margaritas. I made a lot more strawberry tequila than I've posted in the recipe, but I had 12lbs of strawberries and 1.75 liters of tequila, so I saw no reason not to go all out. I froze the rest of the strawberry mixture that I didn't use for future margaritas.

I wanted the flavors to really blend together, but if you don't want to soak the strawberries, just skip that step and use fresh strawberries with tequila. That said, it's VERY easy to hull strawberries, pour tequila over them in the morning and leave them soaking all day to use that night. You can do it more in advance if you'd like.

Point is: you need to be making these margaritas. Channel your inner mixologist and ditch the pre-made margarita mix. It's full of sugar and not nearly as good as these. Feel free to adjust the recipe proportions to your liking. Basically anything with this strawberry tequila is going to be amazing.

Enjoy!

Fresh Strawberry Margaritas

1 1/2 cup silver tequila
1 pint strawberries, hulled
4-6 limes, juiced (about 1/2 cup)
4 oz Triple Sec
4 oz simple syrup

Hull strawberries and place in pitcher. Pour 1/2 cups tequila into pitcher. Allow strawberries to soak in the tequila for 3+ hours.

When you're ready to make the drinks, pour the strawberry-tequila mixture into a blender and pulse until strawberries have blended into the mixture, but some strawberry pieces remain. If you completely pulverize the strawberries you lose the pieces of good tequila soaked strawberries that you so patiently waited for.  Alternately, you can muddle the strawberries into the tequila in the pitcher if you do not have a blender.

Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. To serve, add servings into cocktail shaker with ice, give it a good shake and pour into salt-rimmed glasses.