Honestly, these were some of the best cocktails I've made and rival my regular margarita recipe.

Jokes, spills, and a couple drinks

The Recipe

2 parts Tequila. Get yourself something nice.
1 part Citrus
- 1/3 part lime
- 2/3 part Ojai Pixie Tangerines
  - You can get these online, they're amazing
1/3 Part Agave
1/2 Part Cointreau

Salt your rim, if you like that.
Dump the above into something you can shake it in.
Add ice
Shake.
Pour it out without fear. Spill if you must, but it looks cooler to just go for it.
Decorate with some fruit wedges.
Drink up!

Thoughts

The Pixie Tangerines

These things are good, and a nice departure from a regular margarita (if you really ever need to go away from the classic). I was skeptical when a friend was at the Ojai Valley Inn and talked about this incredible pixie tangerine margarita. Curiosity got the better of me, as it tends to, and I dove into a bunch of research to learn more.

I really like tangerines. I've been known to sit down around the holidays and eat a dozen of them. My mom or dad would come back from the produce store with plastic bags full of them. I'd never heard of pixie tangerines though. Some google searching educated me quick, these things are supposed to be very delicious. The cocktail shows up on a number of lists for top hotel cocktails. Sold, time to try these out.

Really, I was impressed with just how juicy these little tangerines are. They're the best I've had. Full stop.

The Video

Drinking these was great, but the bigger objective was to have a reason to edit and post a video. After the Irish Coffees, there was OVERWHELMING DEMAND (at least 3 people) for more. Another cocktail seemed to make sense.

Filming

This was much easier than other videos, but the difficulty this time around was doing it all solo. Slow motion close up shots are much more difficult when you can't just ask your brother to grab a shot. Running back and forth to check the lighting, standing in position to see how that affected things. Having a solid lighting setup makes a world of a difference, and I spent WAY less time messing with lights around the house to try and get something decent than I did for the scallops video.

Bonus...it feels less awkward filming things and saying things repeatedly when no one else is around. They only have to see the final product, although the mishaps do add to the humor.

Editing

This took more time than I expected it too. I think the major difference from previous videos was I just let the camera run the whole time I made things, so I ended up with around 20 minutes of footage just from the primary angle to cut down. It was less wading through clips, but felt like more back and forth scrubbing around. Maybe I'm just getting pickier with small things. I did get a bit better in my general editing workflow, but I need to invest in some keyboard shortcuts, in particular when I make two cuts, delete the clip, delete the gap, and things shift left. Too many manual interactions.

End results

I'm really pleased with how this one came out. 6 minutes feels like a lot of time/attention to "ask" from people, but when I played with cutting it down to sub 1 minute I just didn't enjoy the video as much. Realizing I'm not asking for time, but it's free for people to check out if they want, let me just hit export and publish.

View counts are low. I haven't gone viral. But what makes me happy is a couple comments I got from friends.