Drink of the Week: Pickled Cowboy

Yeehaw! The Calgary Stampede has arrived, and with it a 10-day pass to do a lot of drinking. Some yokels might drink beer out of a sweaty cowboy boot, or sidle up to the bar for shooters with raunchy names like “Cowboy Cocksucker,” but not you, right? You’re classy. I get it. So I have just the drink for you: a Pickled Cowboy.

The Pickled Cowboy is my new fave tequila cocktail, and perfect for sipping during the Stampede. Drink a couple and you, too, will be pickled. Yeehaw!

I was introduced to this sublime drink last summer in San Antonio, Tex. when I mentioned I like tequila. There are lots of tequila-swilling cowboys down yonder in Texas, and judging from this recipe, they like them some pickling, too. Hot pickled okra juice is the preferred ingredient to pull off this cocktail properly (you can buy jars of delicious pickled okra in most Walmarts in southern U.S. states). Failing that, use the juice of hot pickled beans, or similar.

As for the taste of my new fave tequila bevvy? Not unlike a spicy, somewhat pickled margarita, with a dash of sweet, fresh-squeezed O.J. that makes all the difference. And remember, “Pickled Cowboy” is a play on words — you will become what you drink after a couple of these bad (cow)boys during the Calgary Stampede. Giddy up!

Giddy up and go Stampeding after downing a couple Pickled Cowboys.

Pickled Cowboy

• 2 oz reposado tequila
• 3/4 oz fresh lime juice
• 1/2 oz hot pickled okra juice*
• 1/2 oz agave syrup
• 1/4 oz fresh orange juice
• Salt for rimming glass
• Pickled okra* and orange wedge garnish

In a cocktail shaker, combine tequila, lime juice, hot pickled okra juice, agave syrup and orange juice and top with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a salt-rimmed rocks glass filled with fresh crushed ice. Garnish with an orange wedge and a pickled okra*.

*Pickled okra is not available in Canada. Instead, use the juice from a jar of hot pickled beans (or similar), and sub in a pickled bean or asparagus garnish.

— Recipe courtesy San Antonio, Tex. resident Annice Hill