To Mary or to Maria?

I don't quite agree with just having brunch on Sundays. It should be mandatory every day of the week. Maybe we can bypass Mondays. I'll allow that one day off from brunch.

My favorite thing about brunch isn't the eggs benedict. It's not the delicious breakfast sausages. It's not the hash browns or the Belgian waffles smothered in fresh fruit and whip cream either. It might be the applewood smoked strips of bacon. But it's not. The thing that I like about brunch is the Bloody Mary. Those of you who know me, know that I don't really care for the flavor of vodka except in my pasta sauce. What do I put in my Bloody Mary, you ask? Tequila. Yes, of course, tequila. Now it can't be a Bloody Mary. We would have to change the name to Bloody Maria. 

For those of you who have never had a Bloody Maria, stop whatever you are doing  and go out to your favorite watering hole and ask the bartender for one. You can finish reading this later. I'll wait.......

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Ah! You're back! How was it? Delicious? Everything that you have ever hoped for in life? I thought so. 

Tequila adds a totally different dimension to the Bloody Mary. It adds more midrange flavors to your palate. It balances out the horseradish/pepper/tabasco spice. Tequila seems to act a bit like salt in a Bloody Maria. It enhances all the right flavors and puts a stranglehold on some of the more robust spicy flavors. In basic terms, it balances the whole damn thing out. I love it. I have found that the best tequila to use in you Bloody Maria would have to be a more full bodied and flavorful tequila. I typically use a reposado. Silvers end up tasting a bit like vodka in the Maria and you'll just be wasting money if you use an anejo. I like to use Corazon Reposado or Chinaco Reposado.  If I'm on a budget, I'll use Don Abraham Reposado. Don Abraham is one of the cheapest 100% blue agave tequilas on the market worth drinking. There are some cheaper tequilas out there. Thing is, I wouldn't even wash my feet with most of them.

So, next time you go out to brunch, I want you to just say "No" to that nasty cheap vodka bite in a Bloody Mary. I want you to remember what you learned here today and go for that delicious Bloody Maria. It will change your life.

On a side note, your server probably won't know what a Bloody Maria is. So, just ask them to give you a Bloody Mary with tequila instead of vodka. They'll look at you weird and maybe even cock an eyebrow. Don't mind them. They just haven't had the chance to read this blog yet.