Toast the Season: Satsuma Orange Margarita

I'm not what you'd consider a "guac and margs" girl. I usually opt for a dark beer with my Mexican food and margaritas tend to be too tart for my taste. Also, when it comes to crafted cocktails. I tend to lean towards dark spirits like bourbon and dark rum, and generally steer clear of tequila-anything (there was a bad experience in college that left me sick for days). College, man. But when I saw these beautifully bright satsumas at the market, I figured I'd give it another go on the ol' margarita-quest.

If you'd never had a satsuma orange (also known as citrus unshiu), you're in for a treat! I absolutely loooove them. They're more like a tangerine than an orange, I'd say. The flesh is rough and somewhat loose, making it the perfect kind of orange to peel and eat. Also, they're seedless--how magical is that! I'd categorize them as more sweet than tart, which I think makes them a perfect candidate to mix with some tequila.

The highlight of any margarita for me is a salted rim. In this case, I added a bit of sugar and orange zest to the salt to give it a bit more flavor. It's fragrant--and who doesn't love salty combined with a bit of sweet!

And since the orange juice tends to be on the sweeter side, I added a bit of lime juice to add just a hint of tartness. It's a nice little balancing act, I think. I love this margarita. I hope you to too--it's definitely a good fun and festive cocktail for the holiday season.

Adrianna Adarme is a food blogger and author living in Los Angeles, California. She writes the blog A Cozy Kitchen, where she shares comforting, everyday recipes from her kitchen. She recently authored her first cookbook, PANCAKES: 72 Sweet and Savory Recipes for the Perfect Stack. She's a lover of breakfast, pie (and sometimes even pie for breakfast), corgis and cute things. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.