Don’t only look to a cocktail’s ingredients to spice up the experience.
The salted rim – it’s a staple for many spicy cocktails, from margaritas to Bloody Marys. How is it typically done? Most use either water or some sort of citrus (lime or lemon) to allow the salt to stick to the rim of the glass.
That’s all well and good, but say you want to really up the ante on the spiciness of your drink. Don’t only look at the ingredients in your cocktail, look to the salted rim as well. Using hot sauce instead of water, lemon, or lime can really ramp up the heat.
You control the spiciness.
That’s one of the best things about this little spicy cocktail tip. Hot sauces come in all sorts of heat levels and flavors, so you can find a pairing that fits your palate. The pairings could even be done to best fit the recipe of the cocktail itself, such as a Scotch bonnet hot sauce salted rim paired with a more tropical cocktail.
Best of all, if you want a few sips that aren’t so spicy, just jump to drinking from a straw. It’s an excellent option for giving spicy food fans what they love while still creating a family-friendly cocktail.
For some added oomph, consider adding spicy salt.
Now this is taking this tip and turning it up to eleven. Spicy salts, such as a super-spicy habanero sea salt, mixed with a hot sauce salted rim can create some extreme cocktails. There are, of course, milder spicy salts out there too.
Try this out the next time you’re serving margaritas, spicy Bloody Marys, or any other cocktail where a salted rim works. If you like things on the upper end of the pepper scale, then it’s a fun way to increase the heat of a drink without spicing up the cocktail itself.