The weather is warming up and I’ve got your all-summer-long favorite cocktail ready for you. This lavender margarita is just what you’ll need on those long summer nights as you enjoy the warm breeze while you chase the fireflies in your backyard. Make a pitcher of margaritas and let’s enjoy the summer.
Impress a crowd or make it for yourself for that 2pm pick-me-up cocktail for your never ending zoom meeting. With these simple and easy to find ingredients you will be able to make a pitcher anytime you want to!
Lavender is hard to find in the grocery store and depending on where you live, is not easily found fresh at a farmer’s market unless it’s June. We added some to our garden last year and I love picking it for the garnish, but I realize that is not a possibility for some people. I love the scent and flavor of this little herb, unwilling to change the theme of this margarita recipe, I decided to skip the headache of searching for bloomed fresh lavender and developed this recipe with dry lavender and lavender extract.
Lavender & Vanilla Infused Sugar
Vanilla bean is pricey, in culinary school, we were told that we could multi-purpose vanilla bean and infuse sugar with the pods after using the bean for another recipe, you can also do this and just keep a container of sugar and vanilla bean around for teas, coffee or sprinkle it over strawberries.
This recipe uses the vanilla bean inside to provide a deeper layer of sweetness to the cocktail. You can make a big batch of this and just keep it stored in the pantry for all of your summer margarita needs, the longer time it has to infuse the more flavorful it will be but don’t worry you don’t need to plan ahead, you can also make it to use right away.
I use this mixture to make a simply syrup for the lavender margarita and to rim the cocktail glass. I’ve linked the dry lavender and vanilla bean here.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
2 Vanilla Beans – split and the bean removed
2 TBSP dried or fresh culinary lavender.
In a bowl, add your sugar, using the back of a knife, scrape in the vanilla bean from inside the pod and your dried lavender. Using your fingers press the vanilla and lavender into the sugar to wake up the flavors as you combine the ingredients.
Simple Syrup
This is the only step you may want to do ahead of time so that it has time to cool down before making a pitcher of margaritas. Simple syrup is used in a lot of drinks because it’s an easy way to allow your infused sugar to fully dissolve in water making the flavors evenly distributed throughout and it prevents the sugar from falling to the bottom of your cocktail glass.
Backyard Vanilla Lavender Margarita
Ingredients
- ⅓ Cup Lavender & Vanilla Infused Sugar See Blog Notes
- 1 Cup Water
- 1 TBSP Honey
- 3 Limes – juiced
- 6 TBSPs Tequila
- Ice
- Garnishes: Rim Sugar (lavender & vanilla infused sugar), lime wedge, bloomed fresh lavender
Instructions
- Make your simple syrup: In a small pot, add your lavender and vanilla sugar mix, water and honey. Over medium heat, stir and warm up until the sugar and honey are fully dissolved – 3-5 minutes. Pour into a pitcher and put it in the refrigerator until cooled.
- While the simple sugar cools down. In a pitcher, squeeze the lime juice out of 3 limes, remove any seeds that popped out.
- Once cool, using a fine mesh strainer, strain the simply syrup into the pitcher with your lime juice, add tequila and stir to combine.
- To Serve: Rub a wedge of lime around the rim of your glass and press down the glass rim into the infused sugar. Add ice. Pour in your lavender margarita. Garnish with lime wedge or fresh lavender.
