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Cocktail History
The Something Tequila is a modern tiki cocktail that was created by John Bernard at his bar Porco Loung & Tiki Room in Cleveland, Ohio. It was made as a cross between a Margarita and a Rum Barrel when customers asked for a drink that uses tequila instead of the classic rum base found in most tiki drinks. Bernard then paired the agave spirit with lots of fruit juice, a couple of syrups, and several garnishes.
Cocktail Ingredients
To make this cocktail, you’ll need the following ingredients:
Añejo Tequila: This is the base spirit. We chose Camarena Añejo Tequila smooth taste with notes of citrus, apple, oak, baking spices, and caramel. For a mocktail version of this drink, try Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Agave Reserva Spirit in place of the tequila.
Pineapple Juice: This adds sweet and fruity pineapple flavor. We prefer fresh pineapple juice, but you can substitute canned juice if that’s easier than juicing an entire pineapple.
Orange Juice: This adds sweet citrus flavors for balance. We also prefer to use fresh citrus juice because it’s less bitter than the bottled stuff and tastes better.
Lime Juice: This adds sour citrus flavors for balance. Again, we prefer to use fresh lime juice.
Simple Syrup: This is a sweetener made with white sugar and water. We made ours at home using Alex’s stovetop recipe.
Passion Fruit Syrup: This is a sweetener made with passion fruit juice, cane sugar, gum Arabic powder, and benzoic acid. We used Liber & Co. Tropical Passion Fruit Syrup for its tangy and lush taste.
Lime Slice: This is one of the garnishes. It adds more fresh citrus aroma and flavor.
Mint Sprig: This is another garnish. It adds fragrant mint aroma.
Flowers: These are also a garnish. They’re for aesthetics, not flavor.
Tasting Notes
The Something Tequila features the aromas of mint and sweet agave and follows suit with a mostly sweet pineapple and passion fruit-forward taste that combines the two fruits with strong tequila flavor, orange, and a hint of tart citrus. It then finishes with a heavy dose of agave along with more pineapple.
Our Opinion of This Cocktail Recipe: Despite its flavors not exactly reinventing the wheel since this really is just a fruit juice-filled tiki drink but with tequila, we both thought the concoction was still super tasty and finished it with ease.
Which of our palates is yours most like?
Find out if your palate is most similar to Alex’s or Kendall’s by answering five questions.
Which of our palates is yours most like?
Find out if your palate is most similar to Alex’s or Kendall’s by answering five questions.
Alex’s Take: ⭐⭐⭐
“This recipe is aptly named because it really is just a mixture of flavors along with a heavy tequila note. Though it’s not objectively bad at all, I found it to be a bit one-note, with the agave flavor dominating its landscape along with a subtle mixture of all of its other fruit flavors. It doesn’t even have any sort of spice, such as bitters, that are traditional of this kind of tiki. I think it would benefit hugely from one ounce of rum and two of tequila or at least a few dashes of Angostura bitters or a touch of pimento dram. As is, I find it to be tasty, but it’s just a something with tequila.”—
Kendall’s Take: ⭐⭐⭐
“On taste alone, this is a really good cocktail. It’s pretty hard to mess up one spirit paired with a crapload of fruit juice though, to be fair, and that’s why I’m only rating the recipe three stars. It is delicious, but it is nowhere near as complex as most tiki cocktails are. There’s no spice, no split base, no unique liqueurs…. which to me is what makes a really great tiki drink now that I’ve been doing cocktail tastings with Alex for a couple of years. If you want something simple and tropical, this is a good one, but if you’re on the hunt for tiki drinks that feature a tapestry of unique flavors, I’d pass on this one.”
Recipe
This cocktail recipe was adapted from Easy Tiki: A Modern Revival with 60 Recipes by Chloe Frechette.
Add tequila, pineapple juice, orange juice, lime juice, simple syrup, passion fruit syrup, and ice to a shaker.
Shake for 10-20 seconds.
Strain into a highball or tiki glass.
Garnish with lime slice, mint sprig, and flowers.
Ingredients
Directions
Add tequila, pineapple juice, orange juice, lime juice, simple syrup, passion fruit syrup, and ice to a shaker.
Shake for 10-20 seconds.
Strain into a highball or tiki glass.
Garnish with lime slice, mint sprig, and flowers.
Make It a Mocktail: Use Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Agave Reserva Spirit in place of the tequila to try a booze-free version of this drink.
Tools & Glassware We Recommend
More Tiki Cocktails
If you like this tiki cocktail recipe, here are a few others we’ve tried that you may enjoy:
Tia Mia: A mezcal and rum cocktail made with lime juice, orange curaçao, orgeat syrup, a lime wheel, a mint sprig, and an orchid blossom
Cobra’s Fang: A rum cocktail made with orange juice, lime juice, passion fruit syrup, Swedish punsch, grenadine, absinthe, pineapple fronds, and a snake-shaped orange peel
Donga Punch: A rhum agricole cocktail made with Don’s mix, lime juice, a grapefruit twist, a cinnamon stick, and an orchid blossom
Zombie: A rum cocktail made with velvet falernum liqueur, Donn’s mix, lime juice, absinthe, grenadine, Angostura aromatic bitters, and mint
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