Go to any Tex-Mex restaurant and look at the drink menu. If you don’t see multiple margarita options, honestly, just leave. The margarita is right up there with queso when it comes to key elements of Tex-Mex food.
Frozen margaritas are undeniably amazing. Rising in popularity during the 1950s, they’re always fun and totally refreshing. Also, you can trick your taste buds into thinking that you are not, in fact, drinking tequila.
The classic margarita may have been invented in Southern California but the revolutionary frozen margarita machine was invented right here in Dallas.
Mariano’s Margaritas
Photo by Kara Fellows
In 1971 Dallas entrepreneur, Mariano Martinez ran a struggling restaurant business in Dallas and his margaritas just couldn’t handle the heat. The bartenders at his restaurant said the popular drinks were too time consuming to make and the consistency was impossible to get right. But Martinez refused to give up on his dream.
Martinez and his friend, chemist John Hogan reworked his father’s margarita recipe so that it could be mixed in the machine they invented.
The machine wound up being the end result of a Slurpee machine and a soft-serve machine having a baby. Let’s be real, though – weirder things have probably happened in 7-Eleven.
Photo courtesy of the National Museum of American History
The machine was an instant hit and so was their new frozen margarita. But Martinez couldn’t patent his machine so knock-offs began popping up all over the country.
The effect was greater than Martinez could have ever predicted.
America Loves Tequila
Photo courtesy of tequila.net
Americans like things that are fast, easy and probably going to kill us, so the frozen margarita’s popularity skyrocketed. Unsurprisingly so did US tequila consumption.
We are currently #1 (woo?) in the world for tequila consumption, and in 2006, the margarita surpassed the martini as the most ordered drink in America.
Martinez’s machine was considered so influential in American history that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History put it on display in 2005. That’s the same place as Julia Child’s kitchen. In the food world, that’s a really freakin’ big deal.
The OG Frozen Marg is Put to the Spoon Taste Test
Photo by Kara Fellows
You can go try the original frozen margarita at Mariano’s on Skillman Street. Your SMU Spoon Team went and not only were the fajitas dank, the OG frozen marg was everything a frozen margarita should be. The only catch? It’s not on the menu; you have to ask your waiter for it.
One sip of this refreshing perfection of a cocktail and it’s obvious why it was the drink that shaped Tex-Mex, tequila and America itself.
T-Swift Couldn’t Write a Better Love Story
Gif courtesy of giphy.com
Marg and Tex’s story is actually the perfect love story.
Marg fooled around with Cal(ifornia) but it was never anything serious. Then Tex came along and showed her that she could be so much more than an alternative to a tequila shot.
She could be blended and frozen and fabulous. And Marg perfectly complimented Tex’s spice and flavor. They took the world by storm, always supporting each other in becoming the best they could be.
Move over, Chuck and Blair. Marg and Tex might just be the new #baegoals.