Margarita Week of the Dale/David Project continues with the Cadillac Margarita and the Frozen Margarita.

This Cadillac might not be luxurious enough for some Texans

Dale's Cadillac Margarita consists of 100% Blue Agave Tequila, Grand Marnier, and Fresh Lime Juice, shaken and strained into a chilled cocktail glass that has been rimmed with salt. I went ahead and gave this one a half-rim job for the picture, though I usually don't take salt with my Margaritas.

I think this concept of the "Cadillac" margarita is an interesting one. I can't speak for any place else, but in Austin you will often see some variation of this "super-premium" margarita. Whereas Dale's just calls for "100% Blue Agave Tequila", that is considered the standard for a lot of higher-end places these days. Therefore the "Cadillac" would include some extra-añejo high dollar tequila, and maybe even one of the Centenaire products from Grand Marnier, in the case of a "Millionaire's Margarita". For the prices they get for some of these "Millionaire's" margaritas, I'd come to the millionaire's house and shake drinks all night.

The Frozen Margarita, in its ubiquitous blue glass. Bowling trophy optional.

The Frozen Margarita is something that would generally not cross my lips except for during an academic endeavor such as this one. I followed Dale's recipe, which calls for 2 ounces of Tequila to 1 ounce of triple sec, and 2 ounces of simple syrup to one ounce of lime. Notice that the ingredients are much longer than in the shaken margarita; this is to accommodate for the melting water of the blended ice. The ingredients are also skewed towards the sweeter--are we to assume that this is because the Frozen Margarita drinker favors a sweeter beverage? Perhaps.

The important thing to remember is that you cannot achieve the proper frozen-ness if you put ice from your freezer into the blender. The ice from the waffle-bottom tray will be too big to properly break down; the ice from your ice maker most likely will have absorbed a bunch of funky freezer flavors. It is recommended that you pick up a bag of ice at the grocery store, the cubes are smaller and it will likely be fresher-tasting. I opted to smack some homemade ice cubes wrapped up in a towel; this worked pretty well though I still had some larger ice pieces left after blending the drink.

I chose to present this drink in the traditional blue glass that every middle age white Texan I know seems to have. I bought a bunch of these for a Tex-Mex feast that Tipsy and I prepared for my mother's 60th birthday this year. I don't know what the reasoning behind these glasses is. They're very cumbersome and I would like to know who the hell came up with such a thing.

If you want to waste 2 oz. 100% Agave Tequila, forget to put the blades on the blender cup before pouring in ingredients