pickled beets

[vschmelzer]

I have a couple of bad tequilas and have been hanging on to them for awhile now because I don't like dumping alcohol. I consider this bad tequila because the taste is overwhelmingly like dirt or moldy or rancid, it is probably harmless to drink because of the distillation process and alcohol content but I just can't get it down. So I have been trying to come up with some way to use it. I grew up in Western PA and as bar staple is pickled eggs and beets most bars and clubs had a jar on the bar back and the stuff made a really good snack. I have been pickling for a long time. Mostly cucumbers , zucchini and beets. Here in Escondido, CA we have a farmers market on Tuesday and the local growers offer some really great fresh organic vegetables. And fresh beets are one of them some are the size of a softball. So the last batch I made was with a cup or so of this bad tequila. So here is the recipe :

5-7 Large Red Beets
1 cup Apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup any specialty vinegar that you can find rice, wine, pear, etc.
1/2 - 1 cup tequila
1/2 cup pickle juice dill or sweet

Wash and trim the leaves off of the beets save the leaves for a salad or steam them like spinach. In a covered pan large enough to hold all the beet add water and boil the beets until a fork can be easily pushed into the beets. Let the beets cool until they can be handled peel and cut the beets to small bite sized pieces.
in a container with a seal able lid large enough to hold all or most of the beets add the beets and then all of the vinegars and tequila adding a couple cloves or cinnamon sticks at this point will really spice things up nicely. Place lid on jar and mix liquid and beets a couple of shakes and then refrigerate for 3 days.
If the beets are not covered ad some beet water or more cider vinegar.

Now comes the fun part eating the beets. Why do I call this fun? Do you eat chocolate? Do you remember when that one piece of chocolate tasted so good that you almost ate the pound. Well that is what happens to me when I start eating these beets. I like vinegar but when beets and vinegar come together some happens to the beets that are unbelievable, they sweeten up and lose their gritty dirt flavor. The addition of the tequila seems to enhance the vinegars because i did not notice the dirt taste whole eating the beets. a word of caution if you eat to many or drink the beet juice you may see red in the toilet water the next day. If you have space in the jar you can hard boil some eggs and drop them into the juice also.

I like to have an earthy Blanco with this little snack.

[MrAgave]

Great idea! I'll have to try that with some of my older bottles of Tequila. What do you think it would taste like with Mezcal?

[PRJack]

Cool idea! I'm going to try that this fall.

I've had tequila-jalapeno pickled eggs - great idea, but poor implementation as the folks who made them skimped on things and the resulting flavour was marginal.

[vschmelzer]

Originally Posted by MrAgave

Great idea! I'll have to try that with some of my older bottles of Tequila. What do you think it would taste like with Mezcal?

Not really sure but the smokey flavor of Mezcal may grt lost do to all of the vinegar.
PR, the more of the high quality vinegar that you use the better the flavors of the end product. I search for vinegar as much as I search for older tequila. Drinking the beet juice is quite an experience. I also try to save some for the next batch.