Low Carb Margarita Experiment - Stage 1

On Sunday, my family went out for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, in honor of my husband's birthday.  I had a frozen key lime margarita.  I KNOW!  It was undeniably full of sugar, and a real treat for me, as I hadn't had a margarita (my favorite icy cocktail) in nearly a year. 

As good as that one was, I decided that I would look into making a guilt-free version, one that I could imbibe on this WOE. 

There are a number of sugar-free margarita drink mixes out there.  Some are liquid mixes that come in huge bottles, and some, cleverly, are little single-serve packets of powdered margarita mix, that you can add to your glass of tequila and water on the rocks at a restaurant, if you wish.

Since these options are a little pricey, I googled "low carb margarita recipes" and found this one, created by Laura Dolson:

• 1 jigger (1.5 oz) tequila
• 2 Tablespoons (1 oz) lime juice - bottled more convenient, fresh tastes a lot better
• 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) water
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 Tablespoon's worth artificial sweetener (I like to use liquid, carb-free types)
• Ice - small handful
• Margarita salt or kosher salt

Basically, you take these ingredients, minus the salt, combine and stir or shake until really cold.  Alternately, you can blend them up and serve the margarita frozen.  This recipe makes one sizeable margarita, weighing in at about 2.5 grams of net carbohydrate per serving.

So, last night Pete and I mixed one of these up.  The smell of the margarita was right on.  Lime-y and delicious.  The first sip tasted pretty good too, until I hit the artificial sweetener aftertaste that I dislike so much.  My husband didn't even notice the aftertaste, but complained about the tartness.  So, I added some more artificial sweetener.  He loved it, so he finished the cocktail.

I should have known that the liquid Splenda would bother me, as the aftertaste is bothersome in baked goods, and now I use erithritol or Truvia.

I am going to try this recipe again, but use Truvia instead of liquid Splenda.    I will report back!

Do you have any good, low carb cocktail recipes you'd like to share?