Honey Vanilla Peach Margarita

A margarita made with the leftover juice from canning peaches with honey and vanilla bean

I’m not actually a big fan of cocktails or hard liquor in general. It is just too strong for me.  I am pretty much a wino and not a very knowledgable one either. I usually go with and $11 bottle of Malbec from South America.  I do like a good margarita though and not the slushy type. I prefer the mixed, non-blender method with real lime juice. The way this drink came to be was a happy accident, like many great things in this world (such as my Timothy).  I canned peaches for the first time this summer and I followed (sort of) the instructions from Sarah B. Hood’s book, We Sure Can and somehow I ended up with a lot of juice in the pot after filling my jars. I had sterilized an extra jar so I thought that I may as well pour the juice in and process it with the peaches. I had used honey and a vanilla bean to can the peaches, which are pricey ingredients and in the spirit of canning I didn’t want anything to go to waste.

I figured that I would use the juice in a drink when the right day came along. My husband had been bugging me to open up the jar for weeks and on Thanksgiving Monday I decided to pop it open and mix us some Margaritas while Tim napped. It was 25 degrees Celsius that day (hot – if you are an American reader, like 80 degrees F or something) and we wanted to enjoy what was a bonus summer day on a long weekend.

I now regret that I only had one jar of the peach honey juice. I will probably have to make a blender drink in the bleak mid-winter by dumping a whole jar of peaches in with some ice, lime juice, tequila and Grand Marnier. If I don’t do that I think there would be a big wrestling match between my husband and me over who gets the leftover juice for one margarita after we eat the peaches like normal people. He is a lot bigger than me, but I’m a hair puller and a biter. I think my odds would be pretty good despite my size disadvantage.

I’m sure you noticed in the photo that I didn’t use a traditional margarita glass. That is because I don’t have one. I also mixed the drinks in a glass measuring cup because I don’t have one of those fancy shakers. These tasted so damn good that I doubt using the proper drink mixing tools would do anything to improve upon the end result.  Hell, it would have been fine if I grabbed two straws and we drank it out of the measuring cup.

Sitting with my Georgie, enjoying a Peach Margarita. So happy to have him home and recovering.

I considered not putting this recipe in the regular printable format because you don’t need exact instructions or amounts for this to work well.  I encourage you to mix it to your own tastes.  I also encourage you to go with the pricier Grand Marnier rather than Cointreau for this. I think Cointreau or Triple Sec would be way too bitter with the flavour of the peaches. I also used lemon and lime juice because I didn’t have enough limes to make enough juice for both of us. In the instructions I note to use whatever ratio of lemon and lime juice you prefer. Fresh squeezed juice is better, but if you only have bottled then don’t let that stop you. If you don’t have home canned peaches, then try this with the commercially canned peaches. It won’t be as good as homemade but it would be a helluva lot better than those Margarita powder mixes out there.

Little wee vanilla beans in the bottom of my peach margarita