Tuesdays with TT: Sauza Cocktail Party

Ladies and gentleman, once again, I am pleased to announce another week of post’s by everyone’s favorite sidekick, CT.

Recently, Yvo was invited to a Sauza tequila tasting event. Unfortunately for Yvo, and fortunately for me, she had class that evening, so she passed along the invitation. After meeting up with TT, we were ushered into the second floor of an apartment building near Union Square and greeted with cocktails! The apartment was beautiful, but I was already concentrating on the cocktails in front of me. There were two options to start – a traditional margarita, straight no salt – my favorite kind; and a citrus cocktail – TT’s choice.

My margarita was delicious – not too sweet, like you get in most bars, but not too strong either.

TT’s citrus cocktail was really refreshing! It had a much lighter taste – something you could sip by the poolside all day long!

TT says: I did enjoy the cocktail I selected, not too sweet, but they went pretty light on the tequila in the drink.

After tasting my cocktail, we looked around the place, which had been covered in tequila paraphernalia – from the countless bottles of tequila on display

to the giant bowl of limes!!

This place was ready for a party!

After our initial walk about and mingling with a few other guests, the presentations started. A spokesman from Sauza started with an introduction to tequila and the Sauza brand. Apparently, tequila is most frequently consumed by way of margaritas, makes sense, and margaritas are most frequently consumed by women, also seems right, and therefore women consume the most tequila! I would have guessed college frat boys drink the most tequila in shot form, but who am I to argue? So, this event was planned as a “girls’ night” to showcase the various ways of making easy tequila based drinks and appetizers. This is where the star of the night came in – Marcela Valladolid from Food Network! Marcela told us how easy it is to prepare both food and drinks with tequila and proceeded to show us the ease of making a grapefruit margarita ( just tequila, grapefruit, sugar and club soda!)

TT says: I watch the Food Network a lot, but never heard of Marcela before. After seeing her demo’s, I am beginning to think that she is the Hispanic Sandra Lee.

After the initial demonstration, grapefruit margaritas were passed around, along with some delicious tequila-infused appetizers. We had:

Tequila Lime Shrimp – these pretty good and seem easy enough to make.

Apricot-Tequila Drumsticks – these were also very good, though slightly sweet and very messy.

TT says: These were some tasty, sticky wings!

Tequila Lime Chicken Taco – I liked the mini hard-shelled tacos, but the flavor was just ok, a little bland. It definitely could have benefitted from a little pico de gallo on top.

Tequila stuffed grape – honestly, I don’t remember what it was stuffed with, maybe a walnut mixture? I didn’t care for it very much.

TT says: I agree, it was terrible!

Crab and Olive on a frito – I can’t remember this one either, but I think I can safely say it’s because I didn’t eat it due to the olive. I see a strip of jalapeno and maybe some guacamole holding is together which sounds like a great idea. Maybe I’ll try this at home without the olive.

And my favorites – Tequila tilapia ceviche! This was really yummy and fresh. I also liked their serving it on a tostito chip! I basically stalked the waiter the rest of the event for these.

TT says: CT got served with a restraining order the other night. How is it her fault that she was hungry? Damn waiter!

During the event Marcela made a couple more cocktails including a raspberry mint margarita.

This was a nice light drink too – good for a summer BBQ when you want something different and easy to make a huge pitcher of it.

Last was a Warm Winter Margarita – This was like a tequila-infused apple cider or hot toddy. I like the flavors, but it was difficult to drink on a very warm summer’s evening. I would attempt making this during a winter gathering though.

All in all, we had some great food and drinks. We were provided with a little recipe books including all the appetizers and drinks we tasted. We even got to go home with our very own, full-size bottle of Sauza Tequila!! Thank you to Sauza for hosting a great event.

Please note that this event was courtesy of Sauza Tequila. I received no monetary compensation for this review, nor was I obliged in any way to post about this event, positively or otherwise. This is my own opinion and I feel it was unbiased; you are free to take from this what you will.