There are many things that’ll quench a Texan’s thirst on a hot summer day: a cold beer, iced tea, lemonade. But for some Texans, nothing’s better than a margarita … well, except maybe a frozen margarita.
The cocktail has become synonymous with Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine in America. But the invention of the machine that partially freezes margaritas in large quantities helped boost the drink’s popularity. Dallas restaurateur, Mariano Martinez, invented that machine 50 years ago.
Pat Sharpe wrote about the origins of the frozen margarita in her latest piece for Texas Monthly.
“Frozen margaritas had been around for a good many decades, just made with blenders,” Sharpe told Texas Standard. “But what Mariano Martinez, who was a Dallas restaurateur, did was he invented a way to make them en más, fast and quick and cold.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– More details about the life of Mariano Martinez
– How Martinez got the idea for the frozen margarita machine
– How the original machine ended up in Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
