No one understands drinking better. With years of working as a bartender behind them, a couple of Vanderpump Rules, Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix shared all their best cocktail recipes in the magazine Fantasy AF Cocktails: Drink Recipes with a couple of avid alcoholics, and they gave us a week of margarita recipe perfect for Cinco de Mayo — or any day that ends with a craving for tequila.
“Before you saw any Vanderpump rules relationship unfold, we were both bartenders,” Sandoval, 38, and Madix, 36, write in the introduction to their book about Insta-worthy creations, co—authored with Danny Pellegrino. “We worked in the most popular bars in New York, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. We served drinks to celebrities, socialites, housewives, cool people and definitely a few assholes. When it comes to life and our emotions we may lack, but when it comes to alcohol and booze. . . we are professionals.”
The couple, who have been together since 2014, said before the exclusive fantasy edition of the US Armed Forces that the ideas came not only from their bar menus. “Some of these cocktails were obtained due to the fact that we were out late at night, after the bar closed,” Sandoval said. “Someone says, ‘Yes, come back to me.’ You go back to them, and they have a bottle of vodka. They don’t have faucets. So we end up going through their cupboards, their refrigerator and, in fact, over the years we’ve almost learned how to make a cocktail out of almost anything.”
At the time, he added: “This is where Desperate Bloody Mary comes into play. For example, you fill a bottle with water up to the first line, that’s exactly two ounces. Next line with water, another ounce. Three bags of ketchup, two bags of Cholula, some Tabasco, and it’s a damn good Bloody Mary.
This Marg recipe, however, is a little more chic. “All drinks have a garbage counter,” Madix explained to Us. “So you have cool on one side, crappy on the other, and it will tell you exactly where the drink is on that scale.”
Margarita with cucumber and pomegranate is at the highest level.
This refreshing drink looks too good to be served at home. “Cucumber and pomegranate are perfectly combined with each other,” Sandoval notes in the book. “You’ll often find them in a salad, but you can also combine them as a drink.”
Advice from a professional: make sure you have a shaker and a muddler on hand! The couple prefers Boston-style cocktail shakers, which are best combined with a Hawthorne-style strainer.
“As a rule, when we say “shake” the ingredients in a shaker, you have to shake, counting to ten. More will dilute the drink, and less will not mix the ingredients properly,” the duo writes Pumping Rules.
Cucumber Pomegranate Margarita
Ingredients for 1 serving:
10-15 pomegranate seeds (or use pomegranate juice)
1/4 oz cardamom syrup
2 ounces of blanco tequila
1 ounce cucumber juice
3/4 oz lime juice
Cucumber slice, pomegranate seeds (for decoration)
Side dishes:
Cucumber slice, pomegranate seeds
Instructions:
1. In a shaker, mix pomegranate seeds with cardamom syrup. Fill the rest of the shaker with ice. Add tequila, cucumber juice and lime juice. Shake and strain into a glass with fresh ice.
2. Garnish with a slice of cucumber, pomegranate seeds or both.
Unusual AF Cocktails: Drink recipes from a couple of professional alcoholics can now be purchased at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
