Does anyone have a recipe for a "party sized" Margarita pitcher?

[gsars1]

Originally Posted by totallytequila

I too have tried Nellie & Joe's and even though it is a little better than most, I still don't like the overall taste. If I'm not mistaken doesn't it have some sort of bisulfite or stabilizer in it? Anyway I didn't like the aftertaste and I felt it took away from the premium agave flavor of the margarita.

I use Nellie and Joe' almost daily, and never had a problem. The ingredient label says Key West lime juice from concentrate and less than 1/10 of 1 percent Sodium Benzoate as a perservative which is so neglegible that I doubt you could even tell what it is. If you read the bottle you are supposed to refrigerate after purchasing, so perhaps your bottle wasn't and went bad.

[bn087]

On the Nellie and Joe website, they do have a 100% Natural Key Lime Juice. It says that this product contains NO PRESERVATIVES....perhaps if you were going in that direction you should use that.

I have a hard time buying a 6 pack for 50.00. I do understand that its a lot of lime juice but its funner to squeeze the fruits. I went out and bought a Lemon Juicer today. Its a manual hand squeezer and you just slice fruit in have and place in spoon and squueze...I'll be excited to try it out.

When I stated I squeezed all my fruit by hand for these margaritas. I meant ALL BY HAND! My fingers were wrinkled because of the juice and every hang nail burned. But that will all pay off, this fruit for my margarita was entirely done by hand. And I used all organic fruits and organic agave nectar.

This morning the mix was turning a bit darker from the papayas...it tasted like a little sip of heaven...it will be great. Now the fun begins finding the right tequila to pour into the bottle. I dont want to spend more than 25-30.00.

Sotol HDC
Agavales Blanco or Gold (both 100%)
Tequila 30-30
Milagro

All of those can be found for under 30.00. I saw a few others called TequilaME and stuff I have never heard of. I will have to research before I try...I do not want to ruin my mix by adding bad tequila.

Does everyone agree that my 52oz's of mix is a good proportion for 24oz's of tequila?
That is 76 ounces total (mix and tequila)...it should equal about 9-10 8oz margaritas. The fruit supplies only cost me about 12.00 so if I find a cheap good tequila, it wont be breaking the budget at all!

[totallytequila]

Milagro is ok but how about Correlajo Blanco ($26-$30), Cazadores Blanco ($27-$30), Corazon Blanco ($25-$30) or Gran Centenario Plata $28-$32). Those prices ranges are what I pay here in Florida. Selection & price might differ from your area but all of those are nice mixing tequilas.

[bn087]

Add 5.00 Cazadores, and add 10.00 to the Corazon and Gran Centenario...both of those in silver still break over 40.00...its ridiculous, I know.

[bn087]

My recipe came out splendid!

New Years Eve was amazing and the party pitcher was perfect.

We ended up buying Agavales Gold 100% De Agave since it was cheap. I had tried the blanco previously and actually still have about a half bottle left.

I ended up using this amount of tequila for the recipe...

52 ounces of my previously stated mix.
11 ounces of Agavales Gold 100%
10 ounces of Agavales Blanco 100%
6 ounces of Grand Marnier (I KNOW!, everyone else wanted to sweeten it some more...I didnt allow them to pour more than 6 ounces. I had already added an entire bottle of agave nectar to the mix...)

It was a wonderful combination though. The margaritas were fresh and tasty. I even had left over fresh orange juice left and used it for the champagne to make Mimosas, topped off with a small splash of Grand Marnier....YUM! This recipe made about 10 8oz margaritas (before adding ice)...we used 8oz glasses with ice so we ended up with about 14 margaritas.

[MargaritaLover]

Tried some tangerine juice in place of the orange, in a recent batch, and it was fantastic. Half and half seemed to work well.

[MargaritaLover]

You can get Nellie and Joe's with or without the preservative. Without is just a bit more expensive. Both are available from their website.