It would also be good served over ice in a collins glass, but drink fast so it doesn’t get watered down!

Chai infused simple syrup:

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 teaballs loose Chai tea

heat sugar and water until dissolved. Remove from heat. Add two tea balls to mixture, steep for 30 minutes.

Ramos in Rangpur by Cameron Bogue

His Inspiration:
“India was the finish line for a motorcycle adventure that took myself and two best friends from Shanghai to Delhi. Over 14 months we rode through China, Southeast Asia and over the Himalayas into India. To this day I still draw inspiration from the people and flavors experienced when creating new cocktails. This ode to India incorporates the infamous Chai Tea that is served out of large copper thermoses on every street corner of the country. It is a mix of black tea, spices, cream and sugar. That is why it is the perfect modifier in a Ramos Gin Fizz.”

While I do not know the recipe, clearly, Chai was the main tweak. And my writeup was not nearly as cool, so that is lesson learned for next year. I think I just said something about how I came up with the flavor pairings, without reference to transcontinental motorcycle trips.

This is what I submitted:

Rama Gin Fizz

2 ounces Haymans Old Tom Gin
1/2 ounce blood orange juice (prominently featured in another top 10 finalist’s recipe)
1.5 ounces Chai infused simple syrup
1.5 ounces cream
1 egg white
splash soda
Rose water

How cool is that?

shake all but the bitters. Serve up with a sea salt rim.

Some quick math, using the above claims as constraints, indicates that each serving of the Skinny Girl Margarita contains 1.27 ounces of tequila, .16 ounces of agave syrup, lime flavoring, and 2.57 ounces of WATER. So, $9.64 of your $15 investment is being used to purchase, for the fifth, 11.9 ounces of ADDED water. Of course, this assumes truth in packaging for both the 100 calorie claim and the 12.7% alcohol claim, both of which sound dubious, when this concoction is reverse engineered.

I like to think I make a pretty good Margarita, but, my base recipe weighs in at a whopping 189 calories per 4 ounces, and takes about 45 seconds to make, as opposed to the 10 seconds required of the skinny girl. It does, however, contain 20% alcohol by volume, so the skinny girl alcohol equivalent would be 6.28 ounces, or 157 calories. I am not sure anyone would actually measure out 6.28 ounces of skinny girl to get to 20%, since that would require another 35 seconds, and then, why not just make a fresh one, with actual lime?

So, let’s assume that the skinny girl consumer will just go ahead and have 2, maybe 3 servings, of a pricey watered down margarita, manufactured who knows where, with who knows what critter parts per million. The total time investment of making 3 of these would be roughly equivalent to squeezing a lime, and doing a little shaking, but now skinny girl is at 300 calories, and they have polished off half the $15 bottle. That comes to roughly $2.36/4 ounce drink. Now, if you had just made one from scratch using a good, moderately priced tequila (around $30), and decent liqueur (which does not appear to be included in skinny girl), your price per 4 ounce drink comes to $2.68. If you can find a good bargain, and get a bottle for $25, then you have the exact same price per 4 ounces, almost double the tequila, and exponentially better flavor and quality. Of course, when you examine the economics through an alcohol equivalent lens, the homemade version is suddenly far more appealing – $3.71 compared to $2.68! With superior ingredients! And if you insist on a watered down 100 calorie version, take an entire minute and make a pitcher to enjoy for the week, for less than half the cost of the skinny girl (1.60/4 ounces), using the above proportions. Since you probably don’t have lime flavoring laying around, add 6 limes to the mix, which will also add 60 calories to the pitcher. As an aside, the actual recipe on the website is 150 calories-2 oz tequila, splash of liqueur, and lime.

Which brings me to my point: Are we so lazy that we can be convinced through some slick marketing that purchasing a premixed beverage somehow tastes better, and is more economical, than whipping out 3 or 4 actual ingredients and pouring them into a glass? Are we so lazy that we can’t see past the ridiculous claims to figure out we are buying water with calories? This is indeed a frightening harbinger for the decline of our civilization as we know it. But, I am sure this will sell like hotcakes in my two ingredient town.

3 strawberries
muddle (no simple syrup)
Add 2 ounces Deaths Door Gin
Stir (yes, it should be shaken, but stirring works fine here)
add ice and top with good quality tonic, such as Q

3 fresh strawberries
2 slices cucumber
2 basil leaves
.5 ounce simple syrup (unless otherwise specified, 1:1 using sugar in the raw)
2 oz Hayman’s Old Tom Gin
1/2 oz lemon
grapefruit bitters

Muddle first 4 ingredients
add gin and lemon, shake until just chilled
strain through mesh strainer
top with grapefruit bitters

Add 1 ounce simple syrup (1:1, using sugar in the raw, or even better, gomme syrup)

Add 2 ounces good (not necessarily expensive) rye whiskey, such as Rittenhouse

Shake long enough to chill but not overly dilute-I have wet ice, so I would only shake an additional 20 times or so after the dry shake.

Serve up, and top with bitters (my new favorite is Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas) and a Luxardo Cherry.