Among the many cooling and hydrating drinks made from seasonal fruits, the aam panna is considered to be perfect to sip during the scorching heat of the summer season, helping you beat rising temperatures. Made with a blend of sugar, water, fresh mint and lots of different spices, the drink is known to be quite the crowd-pleaser due to its sweet and tangy taste.
Popular across the Indian subcontinent and made using raw mangoes, the concentrated essence has been adapted by mixologists to craft inventive cocktails incorporating the tangy and tart qualities of the syrup with alcoholic mixers. Enter the aam panna margarita – a cocktail which blends the sour-sweet flavour notes with the intensely boozy notes of a premium blanco tequila.
Image Credits: Mango Basket
As with any other margarita variation, the aam panna margarita can be prepared and served in large pitchers, batch after batch at a pool party or a gathering at home, on a hot summer day. Serving as a great accompaniment to different savoury snacks like chips and dips, sliders and other barbecue treats, the margarita is a sheer delight for your taste buds because it counteracts some of the spicy notes from your seasonal summer feast. Adding fresh herbs like basil or mint elevate the flavours of a regular aam panna, whereas swapping the tequila for gin can accentuate the herbaceous notes of the cocktail even better.
With its sweet, fruity yet slightly bitter profile, a blanco tequila helps to even out some of the tartness in the drink crafting a well-balanced concoction. Using a homemade or store-bought aam panna syrup base can help determine the level of sweetness you want in your final drink, allowing one to experiment more with the flavours of the cocktail. Add a dash of freshly squeezed lime juice to keep up with the margarita’s essence or even add a dash of agave syrup as a sweetener to your raw mango syrup.
Using plenty of spices like saffron and cardamom allows the panna syrup to acquire a vibrant character along with a warming yellow hue reminiscent of the summer. Garnish your margarita with a slice of raw mango coated in chilli for a truly old-school desi vibe, by threading it to a cocktail skewer. Alternatively, rim your glass with salt and chilli powder to echo the flavours of a classic margarita.
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Here’s a recipe to recreate your new favourite summer quencher at home:
Ingredients
- 60 ml blanco tequila
- 3 tablespoons aam panna syrup
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp agave syrup
- Chilli powder and salt
- Raw mango slice, for garnish
Method
- Combine the chilli powder and salt on a saucer and rub the rim of your margarita glass with lime before dipping in the mixture to coat it.
- Add the tequila, aam panna syrup, lime juice and agave syrup to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake thoroughly to combine.
- Garnish with a slice of raw mango slice dipped in the chilli powder-salt mixture and serve chilled.