Tyler Christensen, the 31-year-old bar manager at Malee's Thai Bistro, thinks of bartending as alchemy. In Christensen's modern-day apothecary, he likes to create a new cocktail list each season.
Christensen never used to like margaritas, so he decided to come up with a new recipe that kept the traditional aspect of a margarita while using inspiration from the restaurant's kitchen.
"What I like to do when I make cocktails is go into the kitchen because here I have one sovereign master, and it's our menu," Christensen says. "There's no better way to pair a drink with your menu than to use ingredients you're using in your food."
In the Thai Basil Margarita that he created last summer, Christensen uses Thai basil leaves to add a unique flavor that we bet Jimmy Buffett himself would approve.
The recipe:
2-3 Thai basil leaves
4 seconds of tequila
2 seconds of Triple Sec
2 seconds of Bauchant liqueur
House-made sweet and sour mix
How to make it:
Christensen says to work the proportions based off the glass you make it in. Fill the chosen glass with ice, pour in the tequila, the Triple Sec, the Bauchant liqueur, the basil leaves and top the rest of the glass off with the sweet and sour mix. Blend everything until smooth and add another Thai basil leaf and lime twist as a garnish.
