Now THIS is good tequila!

One of the most famous scenes from the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee is where Mick Dundee (played by Paul Hogan) is confronted in New York by a 3 would-be robbers. One robber with a switchblade demands Mick's wallet, but Mick pulls out his huge bowie-style knife and says, "That's not a knife ... THIS is a knife!" and the robbers flee in terror.

I had my own experience with tequila lately. My previous post talked about how good the Cuervo Platino was. Well, that's a switchblade compared to the Dundee knife of a tequila I just tasted recently, a wonderful Christmas gift from my mom. It's the Don Julio 1942 Anejo tequila, a special reserve aged tequila. While the regular Don Julio anejo is itself a wonderful tequila, this 1942 kicks it up a notch even further in terms of smoothness, complexity, length of finish, and, of course, cost! It comes in a gorgeous bottle that evokes an agave leaf. See below or link here for more info.


After our rather busy Christmas day activities at home, and after going over to Stephen and Tami's house for Christmas dinner, we got back home and put the kids to bed. We were fairly tired after a long day and sat down to watch TV and have a snifter of our new (old) tequila. We were watching Discovery Channel's Mythbusters (link here), and were somewhat dismayed to see that one of the topics for that show was testing the myth that "you can't polish a turd." They were actually attempting to polish real animal dung. This is not the topic to be watching when you're trying to savor your anejo Christmas present!

By the way, they determined that, in fact, a shine CAN actually be put on a ball of feces. Who knew?

Thanksgiving + Mom's birthday, Donna Julio Anejo

My mom, Donna, turned 60 last week, and we celebrated her birthday during Thanksgiving at my wife's aunt/uncle's (Tami/Stephen) home. Thanks VERY much to Stephen and Tami for hosting a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at their home!

Stephen smoked a turkey and a pork butt in his Big Green Egg smoker (link here and photo below). It was fantastic, and their delicious results have caused my wife to begin telling me that we need to get a smoker and preferably begin doing about 1 pork butt per week from now on until the end of time!


Instead of pumpkin or pecan pie, we had a special birthday cake made by a lady in our subdivision who has started making custom cakes. Her name's Erin McCormick (Cakes by Erin, ph 512-504-3868, email here), and she doesn't have a web site yet but I will post it if she creates one. My wife had the cool idea to make a cake like a tequila bottle, and we then thought up the idea of making a "Donna Julio Anejo" cake, based on Don Julio tequila -- this is the same tequila my friend Kevin Aymat downed in one shot, story here.

See below for the results! Note cake was actually chocolate and not tequila-flavored...link here for photo close-up of actual tequila bottle. BTW, this is a fantastic sipping tequila.

Green chile Hornitos, Don Julio Reposado

So I tried my two-chile-infused-Hornitos margarita last night, and it was perfect. Quite spicy, but not downright painful. I may even try infusing a more expensive silver tequila now that I've proven that I like it on the less-expensive Hornitos.

As a side note, I think Hornitos is probably the best tequila value. If you're using British currency, you could say that it's the best "pound-for-pound" tequila out there!

On another tequila note, I sometimes try new tequilas when my local Twin Liquors has a good special, and I really liked one I got last week. It's the Don Julio reposado. I have previously had their silver and their anejo. The anejo is an excellent snifter / sipping tequila, and the silver is pretty good (but not my favorite for margaritas -- I prefer Patron, Herradura, and Gran Centenario). But the reposado seems to be a perfect blend of the silver and the anejo -- excellent both for ritas and for sipping. Good juice!