This month, the BoozeBasher staff decided to face one of our nemeses (no, not sobriety and how dare you bring that up).  We are talking about all things Cognac, or at least three of them.  It is no secret the BoozeBasher staff is not a fan of this French spirit, but we decided to put on the big boy pants and take a shot at tasting this stuff.  We picked out two of the more common brands popularized by the Rap/Hip-Hop scene: Hennessy and Courvoisier.  The third, Jacques Cardin VSOP, was thrown in as a similarly-priced alternative for those that do not want to buy into the hype.
 Results by Reviewer

Cognac	Kevin	Hunter	Wade	Dan	Paco	Average
Courvoisier V.S.	1	1	1	2	2	1.4
Jacques Cardin	2	2	2	1	3	2.0
Hennessy V.S.	3	3	3	3	1	2.6

   First off, we have never understood a liquor that requires the drinker to acquire a taste for it.  You should never have to work hard at enjoying something.  Secondly, Hennessey is a vile liquid.  We simply cannot understand why people continue to pay $35 for a bottle of this stuff.  It has an overpowering sharp taste that burns your mouth and throat as it goes down.  Just think of everything a liquor should not be, and you have Hennessy in a nutshell. 

    Courvoisier was the easy favorite of the group.  It has a lighter, smooth flavor and is considerably sweeter than Hennessy.  The BoozeBasher staff gives Busta Rhymes a gold star for picking Courvoisier to rap about, unlike a number of other artists who seem to enjoy the previously mentioned garbage.  Mixing Courvoisier with cola actually produced a pretty tasty drink, something I could see myself sipping on all night.  The final contender, Jacques Cardin, is a decent alternative if Courvoisier is unavailable and is still worlds better than Hennessy.

   After this little tasting, we still don’t like Cognac, unless it is infused with prodigious amounts of vanilla.  However, in Courvoisier, we did find a liquor that we could see ourselves spending a little time with in the future.  Eventually, we might even learn to like the stuff…but probably not.

    Have you ever wanted to make a margarita that goes beyond the typical store-bought margarita mix and tequila?  I’m sure you have.  This month, we asked our readers to suggest their favorite margarita recipes in our forum.  Unfortunately, we only had two responses to our request, and we only chose to sample one of them because the other included Nyquil.  It very well may produce a tasty drink, but I’d like to think we are too high-brow to throw cold medication into our concoctions.  Cue DrinksMixer.com to the rescue!  We threw in a couple of our own BoozeBasher creations and chose two highly-rated mixtures from DrinksMixer.com.  How did they fare?  Keep reading to see.

Original Margarita
0.7 oz Cointreau orange liqueur
0.35 oz lemon juice
1.4 oz tequila
Shake all ingredients and serve in a margarita glass.

Upon tasting this drink, it’s quite apparent why its creator chose to name it the “Original Margarita.”  This a very sour drink that tastes just like a margarita should.  Granted, this might taste a little more special than a well margarita at your local Mexican restaurant, but the sourness of this drink proved too much for most of those sampling.  In fact, the sourness was enough to almost make my eyes water.  I’m not a big margarita fan, so I was very much unimpressed with this recipe.  I couldn’t even stand to finish the amount I was given to sample.  I was worried that my initial assessment was unfair, but one glance around the room revealed all of the ugly faces and turned heads that an overly-sour drink will produce.  I was not the only one to vote this recipe as the worst one we sampled.

Mansion Margarita
1.25 oz Jose Cuervo tequila
0.75 oz Grand Marnier orange liqueur
0.75 oz Cointreau orange liqueur
1.25 oz sweet and sour mix
Shake all ingredients and serve in a margarita glass.

This recipe had a more citrusy flavor than the traditional margarita taste of the Original recipe and it gave the drink a more tropical feel.  Unfortunately, the citrus flavor was a little too potent.  It really overpowered the tequila and created a slight burn from the acidity.  When drinking the Mansion Margarita, you can also taste every bit of the liquor.  I’m not saying that is always a bad thing, but in this case, it was.  Using both Grand Marnier and Cointreau proved to be too much for the taste buds to handle.  This recipe was not much of a success, but if you really dig a citrus taste and don’t mind a little burn, you might enjoy a Mansion Margarita.

Dr. Unkard’s Mountain Dew Margarita
3 oz Jose Cuervo tequila
6 oz Mt. Dew
Place ingredients in a blender with ice.  Blend until good consistency is achieved.  Serve in a  cheap plastic cup.

Simplicity is really key to this recipe.  This recipe came about from a evening at the apartment with a former roommate.  We had a bottle of Jose but no mixers.  Our apartment complex had a Pepsi© machine.  We improvised, and the Mountain Dew Margarita was born!  It might sound like a disgusting idea for a drink, but it is actually quite good.  The Mountain Dew does an excellent job of cutting the harshness and bite off the tequila, and it also adds a mellow, citrus flavor.  Even though it cuts the harshness of the tequila, the agave flavor still shines.  This drink even looks like a margarita when prepared correctly!  Everyone was really surprised by how yummy this one was, and the fact that it’s so simple to make should tell you that this is a must-try recipe. 

Steve-K’s Margarita
1.5 oz Trago Añejo tequila
1 oz Cointreau orange liqueur
0.5 oz fresh lime
2 dashes of bitters
1 dash lemon juice
Shake all ingredients and serve in a martini glass with your choice or garnishes.

We had to stray a bit from Steve-K’s recipe he posted on our forum.  We elected to use Trago Añejo instead of his suggestion (for convenience), and we could not find the lemon bitters his recipe requires.  We used the handful of brain cells we still possess, and decided to use regular bitters with a tiny splash of lemon juice.  I hope Steve-K won’t be offended by us taking liberties, but we had to make due.  The result was a really impressive margarita.  This drink has a light citrusy taste that also possesses a distinct complexity.  The Trago Añejo is aged in used bourbon barrels and gives this cocktail an awesome spicy and complex taste.  Each sip seems to give hints of different flavors.  This margarita is citrusy and delicious!  Thanks to Steve-K for letting us have our way with his recipe!  Be sure to give his actual recipe a try too.  It might even be better.

Kevin’s Easy Limeade Margarita
6 oz Jose Cuervo tequila
4 oz Triple Sec orange liqueur
6 oz can frozen limeade
Place ingredients in a blender with ice.  Blend until good consistency is achieved.  Serve in a  margarita glass.

Kevin claims he got this recipe from some elementary school teacher.  I don’t know if she ever fed this to her students, but I think it would certainly make for a more interesting recess (The Boozebasher staff does not condone feeding margaritas to children, no matter how much you want them to go to sleep during nap time).  This Easy Limeade Margarita has a very strong lime taste.  It’s very sweet and absolutely delicious!  It might be a little too sweet for some, but the limeade does an excellent job of covering up any harsh tequila flavor.  The Triple Sec gives the drink very nice citrusy notes to go along with the lime taste.  When drinking this margarita, it is very possible to forget that you are drinking an alcoholic beverage at all.  It tastes like a delicious tropical slushy, so if you aren’t careful, this drink will put you flat on your face.  This was a consensus favorite.

Results by Reviewer

Recipe	Hunter	Wade	Kevin	Susan	Average
Kevin’s Easy Limeade Margarita	1	1	1	1	1.0
Steve-K’s Margarita	2	3	2	2	2.25
Dr. Unkard’s Mt. Dew Margarita	3	2	3	3	2.75
Original Margarita	5	5	3	4	4.25
Mansion Margarita	4	4	5	5	4.5

    All in all, the margarita tasting was a fun experience. We discovered that the traditional recipes aren’t always the best ones and that good things can come from a little creativity. We’d love to hear what you think about these recipes, and feel free to tweak and share any discoveries. If you have any good margarita recipes of your own you want us to try, feel free to share them here. We just may sample your recipe next time. Just keep in mind that we prefer our margaritas to include tequila and no cold medication. Cheers.

        The BoozeBasher crew is back at it again with the blind taste-testing.  This time, we decided to give it a try with a number of silver tequilas.  In a lesson we learned from our blind vodka tasting, we decided to stick with all the same level of liquor and dropped the number sampled down to four.  In this case, we went top-shelf with all of the tequilas around the $50 mark.  The cast members for this show were Cabo Wabo, Don Julio, Patrón, and Trago.  Going into the tasting, we already had some preconcieved notions, namely that Cabo is fantastic and Patrón is garbage.  
Results by Reviewer

Tequila	Kevin	Hunter	Wade	Dan	Robert	Average
Trago	1	1	1	1	4	1.6
Patrón	2	2	3	4	1	2.4
Don Julio	4	4	2	2	3	3
Cabo Wabo	3	3	4	3	2	3

     Really there are not losers in this group, but we did come out with a clear winner.  Trago dominated the rest of the competition, taking first place in everyone’s, except for Robert’s, opinion.  Robert’s big gripe with Trago was the strong initial peppery flavor that was just too overpowering to enjoy.  Ironically, it was that same peppery flavor that drew the rest of us to mark the Trago as our favorite.  Unlike vodkas, the tasting of tequila is extremely subjective because each offers a distinct flavor, so opinions of these tequilas may be vastly different.

    Once again, our opinions based on the labels were smashed like a bug on a windshield once the result were revealed.  Patrón finished in a solid second place.  Hunter and I even had a tough time deciding on the ranking between the Trago and the Patrón resulting in multiple revisits to figure it out.  Cabo Wabo was tied for last place with Wade actually cursing its existence.  If he could have rated it lower, I think he would have given it about 8th place.  The BoozeBasher staff was split on Don Julio.  Hunter and I were not big fans of the finish and aftertaste.  However, Dan and Wade were singing its praises, despite its cheap, fake plastic screw-on cork.

    We made it through the tasting without burning down anyone’s house, shooting our pistols into the air, or dancing on any tables.  With this much tequila in one place, all of the above was a distinct possibility.  All of these tequilas were actually pretty good, and they should be at their price point.  Of course this is just our inexact opinion of these liquors.  I suggest you give them a try and vote on your favorite.  Really, who couldn’t use a little more tequila in his or her life?