Editors Note: This article originally appeared July 13th, 2012
Ever wonder what 10,500 gallons of margarita looks like? Neither did we, until our very own Nick Nicora decided that Jimmy Buffett’s Las Vegas record needed a California-style challenge. Spoiler alert: Margaritaville, we’ll take that title, thank you very much.
Picture this: a 25-foot tall blender (yes, you read that correctly) powered by a 20-horsepower motor, because apparently, your countertop Vitamix just wasn’t going to cut it for this job. The recipe? Oh, just a casual 4,650 bottles of Jose Cuervo Gold Tequila (that’s 2,100 gallons for those keeping score), mixed with 8,400 gallons of margarita mix, 50 gallons of lime, and 20 gallons of Cointreau. You know, your standard Friday night cocktail.
But what makes this story special isn’t just the numbers – it’s the heritage behind it. Ricardo Hussong, third-generation owner of Hussongs Cantina in Ensenada (where the margarita was supposedly first created in 1941), flew in to witness the historic moment. It’s like having the grandson of the man who invented the wheel show up to watch you build a monster truck.
“Taking a world record from an institution like Margaritaville is nothing short of extraordinary,” as Christopher Ford from Stitches ‘n Dishes put it. And he’s right – it takes more than just a really big blender and a dream. It takes a community, as Nicora himself emphasized: “It can’t be just me; it can’t be just Ricardo. It’s got to be the whole team.”
The result? A cocktail that could serve 134,000 people, beating Buffett’s previous record by 2,000 gallons. And while some might call it excessive, we prefer to think of it as “efficiently social.” After all, isn’t sharing a margarita with friends what life’s all about? We just happened to make enough for all our friends… and their friends… and their friends’ friends.
For those wondering about Nick’s record-breaking habits – yes, this is the same mastermind who brought you the 777-pound hamburger at the Alameda County Fair. Apparently, doing things at normal scale is just not in his vocabulary.
The massive margarita was served at the California State Fair in souvenir cups, making it possibly the only time you could legitimately say you were drinking from a world record. And while we can’t promise it was the best margarita ever made (try mixing anything perfectly at that scale), we can definitely say it was the biggest.
Note: No limes were harmed in the making of this record… okay, that’s a lie. We definitely massacred a lot of limes.