If you celebrate Cinco de Mayo the way folks around here do, you’re going to need some serious grub to soak up the booze. The following recipes will not only satisfy any Mexican cravings, they’ll also lay down a base coat before your night gets going. Best of all? They can pretty much all be scaled up to feed a crowd. So enjoy responsibly and leave other Cinco de Mayo menu ideas in the comments.

TACOS, TOSTADAS, APPETIZERS

Tacos de Barbacoa

Chile-Braised Pork Tacos

Tacos de Cochinita Pibil

Red Chile Beef Tostadas

Taquitos

SALSAS & DIPS

Avocado-Tomatillo Salsa

Guacamole

Habanero Hot Sauce

Chipotle Bean Dip

Crema Mexicana

ON THE SIDE

Smoky Chipotle Black Beans

NICE & REFRESHING

Agua de Horchata

I love a good cocktail.  Trouble is, it’s not always easy to find one.  While there are now countless artisanal bars serving drinks of all varieties, both modern and old, the reality is that you can’t expect to find an outstanding cocktail at an average bar.  Take for example the classic, whiskey sour.  Order one up at your local neighborhood dive and your guaranteed to be poured  a neon yellow concoction topped with an equally garish maraschino cherry.  Odds are it will taste comparable to battery acid with a look and viscosity of Lysol – yes, I despise sours mix that much.  Having endured my fair share of hangovers at the hands of these sickly sweet spirits, I’ve come to believe that that stuff might just be worse for you than the booze in the glass.

Enter, the Rhodie.  A refreshing take on the old standby, but without a drop of sours mix in sight.  Here, quality bourbon is shaken with fresh lemonade, tart Meyer lemon juice and a splash of grade-A maple syrup for a concoction that delivers all the sweet/sour qualities of the original.  Served up and free of any of those formaldehyde cherries, the Rhodie is a pure expression of bright, refreshing lemon on a background of sweet, caramelized bourbon and maple syrup.  One sip and you’ll have a hard time going out for drinks ever again.

THE RHODIE

From Michael Bauer of The San Francisco Chronicle

It’s not difficult to make an expert cocktail at home.  The better your ingredients are before they go into the shaker, the better you end product will be.  All you need is good, clean-tasting ice, fresh homemade lemonade, ripe Meyer Lemons and top quality bourbon and maple syrup.  If I want to get really fancy, I’ll strain my cocktail from the shaker through a fine mesh sieve in order to catch any stray pieces of ice or pulp.  This produces a drink of superior texture and clarity.  Still want an awesome drink but can’t be bothered to source the above mentioned ingredients?  Grab yourself some store-bought lemonade, a couple of Eureka lemons grade-B maple syrup and any old bottle of whiskey and you’ll still have a better cocktail than what you’re likely to find in most bars. If you decide to go with conventional lemons, just be sure to adjust for their relative acidity by adding a splash more maple syrup for balance.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 ounces Bulleit bourbon (or other quality bourbon)
• 1/2 ounce fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice (see Note)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure maple syrup, or more to taste
• 2 ounces fresh lemonade

METHOD:

• Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice.
• Add all of the ingredients, secure the lid and shake vigorously for 30 seconds until the contents are frosty and iced cold.
• Pour through a fine mesh sieve into a glass and serve immediately.

Makes 1 strong cocktail or two small

When it comes to taquerías, the only thing more dependable than the requisite plastic container of pico de gallo is the dispenser of horchata lurking just behind the counter. Since I’m usually eating my way through a two pound super burrito–that’s rice, beans, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and chorizo, for me–a gulp of cool, sweet horchata is exactly what I need to cut through the grease and cool the fire.

For those of you who don’t know, horchata is essentially a rice milk with the addition of sugar and cinnamon. There are about as many of variations of this sweet drink as there are taquerías in California, and they’re not all created equal. I find myself drawn to those versions that taste more custardy–a lot like melted ice cream–usually with the inclusion of vanilla and milk (whole, sweetened condensed, or evaporated).  After purchasing an instant commercial mix at a local Mexican grocery store, which only left me with a pitcher of flavorless chalk water and a bad taste in my mouth, I set out to make a version modeled after one of my favorite taquerías. The result was everything I had hoped it would be: creamy, refreshing and just sweet enough. This stuff is great by itself, but even better when served with good Mexican, like tacos de cochinita pibil.

AGUA DE HORCHATA

This recipe is extremely easy to prepare, however there is quite a bit of straining involved.  I used a conical sieve along with some cheesecloth and the results were great.  A bit of sediment is unavoidable it seems, but after a good stir everything is reincorporated. You definitely want to serve this over ice as it will keep the drink cold while further diluting the rich drink.

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4 cup uncooked, long grain rice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons good quality vanilla extract
• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 7 cups, cold filtered water
• Ice cubes for serving
• Whole cinnamon sticks for garnish

METHOD

1. Place the rice in a medium-sized bowl and add enough water to cover by one inch. Place the bowl in the refrigerator to soak overnight.
2. The following morning, place the rice and its soaking liquid into a blender.  Add the cinnamon and vanilla and blend on high for at least 30 seconds.  Pour the blended rice, cinnamon and vanilla mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large serving pitcher, reserving the sandy rice sediment.
3. Return the reserved sediment to the jar of the blender and add the sweetened condensed milk along with 2 cups of cold water. Blend again on high for at least 30 seconds.  Repeat the same straining procedure as in step 2, making sure to press on the rice solids to extract as much liquid as possible.  You may now discard the rice sediment.
4. Rinse your strainer thoroughly before lining it with two layers of dampened cheesecloth.  Pour the contents of the pitcher back through the cheesecloth lined strainer into a large bowl.  Pour the contents of the bowl into the pitcher for the last and final strain.  Add 3 more cups of water to further dilute the mixture.  Make sure to stir the pitcher before serving in order to reincorporate the sediment.  Serve over ice and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Makes about 2 quarts

Incorporating various aromatic herbs into classic cocktails is certainly not a new trend in mixology. That being said, summer presents one of the best opportunities for the home cook to try their hand at a seemingly exotic cocktail like the Basil Gimlet. With an abundance of fresh basil during these warm summer months, I am constantly looking for a way to use up those few leftover leaves lying around from recipes like Basil Chile Chicken and the ubiquitous Caprese Salad. This cocktail is so easy to pull off, and the end product definitely results in a drink that seems to be more than the sum of its parts. Bright, floral and refreshing are all adjectives I would use to describe the taste of what has to be one of the best libations for sultry Summer evenings and backyard cookouts.

Basil Gimlet

Adapted from Rye in San Francisco

When mixing this cocktail at home, its important to have a few good tools of the cocktail trade: a muddler, shaker, and fine mesh strainer. When muddling the cocktail, make sure not to break down the leaves of basil too much as you are only looking to bruise them and release their oil, not make a paste. Also, whenever shaking cocktails, it’s important to keep your glasses, alcohol, and shaker as cold as possible to prevent excess dilution. Finally, when pouring your drink, strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve to catch any stray bits of basil for a more elegant presentation.

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

1.  Place 4 of the basil leaves into a  mixing glass and squeeze the lime in on top.

2.  Press down on the leaves of basil with a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon until the leaves are bruised but not broken apart. About four or five twists with muddler should be fine.

3. Fill the mixing glass three quarters of the way up with ice and add in the simple syrup and vodka or gin.

4. Give the glass a good shake and strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a chilled martini glass.

5. Garnish the drink with the remaining basil leave.

makes one drink