If you followed our Instagram stories this weekend you would have seen the little lockdown party that we had on Saturday evening. By lockdown party we mean a little date night with Andy and I, featuring some Margaritas and a legendary burger recipe courtesy of Hard Rock Cafe in Manchester.
I was really happy when the recipes landed in my inbox from Hard Rock Cafe Manchester as it meant I could utilise our new bar, which we'd spent the previous weekend putting up and styling. Can we just discuss what a cute little feature this makes in the corner of any room and has such a practical use in the current climate as everyone is creating their own at home pubs and restaurants.
Now that you've all had the chance to admire my beautiful home bar its onto the real reason that you all jumped onto this post, because you want to learn how to recreate your own margaritas at home until you can go to your favourite spot in Manchester for the real deal.
My first praise for this recipe is that it is genuinely FOOL PROOF! Like, I could do it no issues and perfected it on the second try, I was a wee bit too light with the alcohol on the first go and I think I ended up making a virgin Margarita which wasn't what I had in mind for an at home Saturday evening.
If you were following along with my stories on Saturday evening then you will note that we had a slight nightmare on the tequila front... Seriously, who the hell is buying tequila in the gallons from the supermarkets, apparently its been really hard to find EVERYWHERE! We had to sub tequila for Vodka, but a quick search on Google confirmed this was totally fine and we ended up making a Vodkarita, I'm not even mad as it tasted delicious.
So, to make your Margarita/ Vodkarita you will need the following:
- 2 strawberries, sliced - Definitely recommend slicing and if you're using frozen letting them de- frosted slightly as the strawberry is key for the colour (top tip from the master over here);
- 1.25 oz. Tequila/ Vodka
- 0.50 oz. Orange liquor - Any will do but usually you can find an orange liquor in the spirits section which will say perfect for cocktails. Ours was £10 from Morrisons which was a bargain.
-1.50 oz tropical juice blend - this can be anything from passionfruit, guava or mango. We just got a juice mix from morrisons which stated it was tropical and this worked perfectly well for us if you are struggling.
- 2 oz pineapple juice - easily found in the fresh juice aisle.
- 0.5 oz of Agave Nectar - As I said on my stories this is located next to the sugar and you don't need much of this at all as a little goes a very long way.
- 1.25 oz of fresh lime - You can purchase lime juice in the baking aisle however we used 2 fresh limes for ours.
- A cocktail shaker - I had to improvise with this but managed to find a suitable mixer. I have since been informed you can use a glass and a small beaker in pretty much the same way, but I didn't fancy risking getting Margaritas all over our ceiling.
- Ice cubes
Method:
Pop your sliced strawberries in your cocktail shaker along with your ice. I did a little shake of the strawberries to mush them up a little bit. Then add your tequila, orange liquor, tropical fruit juice blend, fresh lime juice, agave nectar and pineapple juice into the cocktail shaker along with the strawberries and shake for around 1 minute or until you feel that you've got the perfect mix.
I then used to cocktail shaker to strain the cocktail into our glasses over fresh ice and added a sliced lime as a little garnish, 'cause we fancy over here! Voila!! You have your very own Hard Rock Cafe inspired Margarita and can feel like you're heading out for a night out on the town, even if truthfully you'll be having pre-drinks in your kitchen and moving on to the living room later on in the evening.
Of course, our little date night didn't end there as rather riskily whilst making our own cocktails we were also re-creating the Original Legendary Burger. Admittedly, I was a bit worried about this as Hard Rock cafe is a really tough act to follow...
So to recreate one of our Hard Rock favourites we used some beef and ale beef burgers and cooked them via the grill. Whilst we were waiting for the burgers to cook we also popped some rustic fries in the oven and began to prep the rest of our ingredients. Once the burgers are cooked pop some sliced cheese on top and whack back into the oven until melted. Cook two slices of bacon per burger to add as a topping. We recommend then toasting your burger buns, we did this in the grill as well so they were lightly toasted.
Then its time to stack your burgers, start with the buns base and add the lettuce and tomato. Then get your burgers and pop those on top of the bun along with the two slices of bacon. Add your onion ring to the stack and then pop the top of your burger bun up. If you're really fancy you can add a cute cocktail stick and homemade flag to really recreate that authentic look. We even found some cute bowls to put our chips into. You can then garnish your burger how you'd like with your favourite sauces and then tuck in.
We will definitely be re-creating this during lockdown as it was a lovely little date night getting to try out some of our favourite recipes from a Manchester fave of ours! Of course, it isn't as good as the real thing but it will keep those cravings at bay until we all come out of lockdown and can get out to the city centre for the real thing!
A huge thank you to Hard Rock cafe for allowing us to re-create these recipes and letting us share them with you all. If you'd like to get involved with staying home and staying safe the Hard Rock Cafe way please re-create these recipes (I know you're all dying to have the Margaritas) and share via social media tagging their accounts - If you head to my Instagram page you'll find their details all there for you. They also have a Twitter (@HardRockCafeMCR - which is the same as their Instagram handle) and Facebook (Hard Rock Cafe Manchester).
I hope you enjoyed our Saturday night antics and this post as much as we've had fun being involved with this little campaign. Hopefully, this gives you guys some inspiration for the up and coming weekend and I know come Friday night I'll be hitting the Margaritas again!
Stay safe everyone!
Until Next Time
T
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**Just to let you guys know this post isn't sponsored in anyway and is just our way of helping a local favourite share a campaign which we really believe in as it's so important to stay at home and keep everyone safe!
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