Cocktail Week: #1 Berry Margarita

As I've shared before our summer Saturday morning ritual typically includes a strenuous hill walk and a reward for the work= a visit to the Proctor Farmer's Market.

And finally our market is full of the wonderful bounty that July brings from the farm in Washington.

These lovely, ripe and local strawberries and blueberries made an excellent Fresh Berry Margarita to celebrate (or commiserate the end of our leisurely month off.)

I am going to do my best to post at least 3 or 4 different cocktails that we've enjoyed making this summer in the next few posts. (We'll see if I can stay focused to accomplish this goal.)

This one is a bit time consuming but worth it. I first washed and trimmed 1 cup of blueberries and strawberries each. I blended them in the blender and then

pressed through a fine sieve to remove as much of the seeds as possible. (You can see in the photo of the drink  though that seeds are almost impossible to fully remove from strawberries.)

While I did this G squeezed 6 limes into the pitcher. We added the berry juice, 1/4 Cup fine sugar. This was a batch of 4 margaritas so we used 4 shots of blanco tequila and 2 1/2 shots of orange liqueur..

We mixed the drink in the pitcher with ice and poured into 4 glasses and garnished with a strawberry.

The drink is a bit tart with the fresh berries. But that's how we like it...I'm not a sweet syrup margarita fan so these were perfect for our liking. If you like a sweeter cocktail you could either add more syrup or create a simple syrup.

Make use of the almost gone local berries and enjoy this drink.

Our Fresh Berry Margarita Recipe:

Makes four drinks:

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup fresh strawberries

The juice of 6 limes

1/4 cup fine sugar

4 shots blanco tequila

2 1/2 shots orange liqueur

Ice

Clean and stem berries. Blend in blender until liquefied. Strain berries through a fine sieve. Juice limes and add berry juice to pitcher. Add sugar, tequila and orange liqueur. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add margarita and ice to 4 glasses and garnish with strawberry.