Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Then when the Spanish colonists discovered agave/tequila, they adapted the old drink using the stronger stuff." Except that the history of the Margarita only goes back as far as the '30s - late 20s at the earliest (I looked it up out of curiosity). The Spanish settlers were long gone by then.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 What you're seeing is the history of the Mexican margarita. What I'm saying is that a completely different drink with the same name, non-tequila based, preceded it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Kind of like if you looked up a history of Birmingham, and found a history of the Alabama city. There is, of course, a much older city in England with the same name with its own history.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt ^^Right, and I'm wondering if there is a connection between the two drinks or do they just happen to have the same name.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I think the only connection is this: the original Spanish drink was wine based. When the Mexicans cultivated agave and came up with tequila, wine was probably a lot more prevalent than lime juice (or certainly, "Margarita mix,") so they created a drink with tequila and wine and called it a Margarita - sort of their (stronger) version of the old Spanish wine-based drink. You can still get a tequila margarita mixed with wine rather than that corn syrup junk in some places. Over the years the sweeter, lime juice or "margarita mix" version became the standard.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Not to belabor the point, but all I'm saying is that I couldn't find any data online that makes a connection between Spain and the North American margarita drink. Therefore, my assumption is that it originated here and the Spanish adopted it, not the other way around.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Well, I'm going with what my Spanish friend told me, but he was quite insistent about it, and he's a very knowledgeable guy, especially about food and drink. Mind you, the Spanish Margarita was never a "sensation" in the drink world the way the Mexican version became. It's simply something that apparently existed there with that name before the Mexican version, but not nearly as popular; perhaps not even known outside Spain or even Aragon (where my friend is from). As I said about tortillas, lots of things with Spanish names that mean one thing in Spain came to mean something entirely different in the various spanish areas of the new world. I first had tapas in Spain in the 80's, and had never heard of them. Now you can't go to any big sized city without finding tapas bars, or even places serving "Greek tapas" or "Italian tapas" or other variations. But they'd existed in Spain under that name forever before finally "taking off" in the rest of the world much more recently.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt That's true Dabob. Spanish food, especially the cooking from the Mediterranean regions, has become enormously popular over the years. It's for good reason too. Some of the best meals I've ever had were in Spain. I've dated a couple of Spaniards (I was actually engaged to one and almost moved to Barcelona) and I've been to Spain and Andorra many times. This margarita thing is something I've never heard of before. Not to suggest that I know all there is to know about Spanish mixed drinks, but I have had some firsthand experience with the culture. I have a very good friend in NYC who is Spanish and I'll check with him and see what his opinion is. I'm very curious about this.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>That pic of 'Luke's Night Club' in #74 is bizarre! I cannot possibly imagine a worse looking bar...<< As far as I know, it was based on a set used in General Hospital.
Originally Posted By Sparrow I've been there once and the service was horrible. So horrible I'm not willing to try it again.
Originally Posted By gadzuux I'm not sure what kind of service you were expecting. You stand at the bar and wait for the bartender to ask you your order. He makes it, you pay the bill, you're done. What could possibly go wrong?
Originally Posted By dl1956 If Sparrow is referring to service at the Cove Bar, I would have to say that up until about a year or so ago, table service, in particular, left something to be desired. Not bad service mind you, but spotty. I always attributed this to the lack of steady, consistent hours of operation, making it hard to maintain a reliable staff, let alone a steady one. Which a bar, above all, really needs. Lately, tho, despite all the construction, I have observed better attendance at DCA, and not coincidentally, imo, improved service at the Cove.
Originally Posted By gadzuux I'm too impatient to wait around for someone to come to the table anyway. I'll just go to the bar and order the round - quick, easy, effective. Problem solved.
Originally Posted By danyoung It's pretty easy in any given bar to ascertain the staff and their availability to you. If you sit at a table, wait 10 minutes, and never see anyone serving tables, then you can pretty quickly figger out that there's either no table service or lousy table service. Sometimes the bartenders have to come out and work the tables, which is horribly inefficient. In that case, just sit at the bar and make your order - drinks coming!!!
