Mad Mex Robinson’s Mad Brew Fiesta is less than a month away!

30+ breweries will be pouring their hoppy hearts out just for you on Saturday, June 15^th from 1-5pm. Tents and tables will be rolled out, the sound system set up and the grill’s gonna get smoky as you enjoy samples of craft beers sure to include some small batch rarities that will make your friends (and enemies) jealous.

This could be YOU!

Four hours of beer, food, tunes and sunshine can be yours for just $40 (in advance, $50 at the door). Get ‘em while they last at Mad Mex Robinson or online: http://secure.bigburrito.com/productslist.aspx?CategoryID=11&selection=1&

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The sun is shining, bright green buds have taken over the bare brown limbs of trees, a warm breeze carries the scent of Dos Equis and margaritas slosh in their glasses…

Cinco de Mayo Weekendo is coming!

This year we’re serving up old favorites like $5 Dos Equis drafts, dollar off Mexican bottles, Sunday breakfast Mex and the return of our Win a Year of Free Mex contest, plus a brand new margarita Happy Hour.

 

We love this holiday so much, we decided to double it! Our Cinco de Mayo fiesta has become Cinco de Mayo Weekendo, a two day celebration of all things Mexy!

 

Need more reasons to rock this party all weekend long? Check out this video from last year’s Cinco de Mayo, and then imagine it twice as good…

 

 

Grab the full details—including our schedule of free live music—right here: http://www.madmex.com/regions/pittsburgh/events/2013/05/05/index.shtml

 

Escape (The Piña Colada Margarita Song)

I was tired of my old drinks, every sip tasted wrong,

Like a worn-out game cartridge, of Donkey Kong.

So while it lay there bubbling, I read the internet,

And there in the Mad Feed, was this letter I read:

 

If you like Piña Coladas, and majestic lion manes,

If you aren’t a zombie, who enjoys eating brains.

As long as you’re old enough to know, how to work a videotape,

This is the marg that you’ve looked for, come to Mad Mex and escape.

Ready for my close-up…

 

“Wisdom be leakin out my grapefruit.” – Nas, “It Ain’t Hard to Tell”

When the complex yellow-orange orb now known as the grapefruit was first discovered in Barbados, it was called the forbidden fruit. Nowadays, Barbadians hold the citrus in high esteem, naming it as one of the Seven Wonders of Barbados (this forbidden fruit is in good company. Other wonders include the Baobab tree—with a trunk so wide it takes 15 adults joining hands around it to pull off a successful grouptreehug—and something called “Cannon Galore,” which you gotta admit sounds pretty cool!)

The grapefruit spoon, third cousin to the spork, has serrated edges like a knife. Should it be called a spnife? Whatever. You won’t need one to enjoy the Rojo Grapefruito margarita.

In addition to being a tropical wonder, grapefruits can make you immortal ([probably] true fact!). They contain high levels of spermidine (don’t laugh, it’s a science word!) which decreases in cells as they age. Increasing spermidine levels via grapefruit intake can prolong your lifespan and slow signs of aging! Aroma-therapists also praise grapefruit oils for their reviving and relaxing qualities. (How can they do both at once? We told you this fruit’s complex! Go ask an aroma-therapist.)

Tart and refreshing, grapefruits contain lots of vitamin C and antioxidants. Which makes February’s featured Rojo Grapefruito margarita perfect for anyone with a case of the winter sniffles (or wanting to avoid one). But you better get here quick. After National Grapefruit Month is over, this pomplamoose juice will be forbidden once more!

Unforbidden–for a limited time!

History Be Crazy!

In olden days, after apples were gathered from the orchards, cultivators scratted them into pommage using pressing stones, building up the pulp into a block of cheeses. Sweet straw or hair cloths were placed between the layers, along with slatted ash-wood racks. Next, this set was squeezed until all the must leaked out, to be strained in a coarse hair-seive then casked to ferment. Every Autumn, the villagers would gather, led by the wassail King and Queen singing a processional tune from one orchard to the next. The wassail Queen was lifted into the branches of each tree where she’d offer a toast as a gift to the tree spirits to ensure a good harvest.

Eggnog was popular in Britain among old-timey aristocracy (since they were the only ones who could get milk and eggs), who called it a Hell’s Angel and drank it for breakfast. In 1826, a two-day mutiny broke out at the United States Military Academy in West Point, which came to be known as the Eggnog Riot. More than seventy cadets, drunk on the ’nog, occupied the North Barracks, knocking out and shooting at a number of their captains and lieutenants and causing multiple minor injuries and several thousand dollars in damage. Twenty cadets were court-martialed for the offense.

Sure wish we could live in a time where we didn’t have to make offerings to tree spirits. Or have scurvy.

In 2012 at Mad Mex, we mix up apple butter with booze and cider, garnishing the rim with caramel sauce for our Apple Cider margarita, and shake up some nutmeg, nog, sugar and liquor for our Nog-A-Rita. Available all December long. No royalty, hair cloths, or rioting required.

Yeah, aren’t you glad you live in the here and now?

Tastes way better than scurvy.

Happy holidays!

Let It Linger

The humble cranberry: bobbing on the surface of an autumn bog, comingling with apple and grape in juices, speckling salads with sweet tartness, the bittersweet chocolate of the berry world. The cranberry doesn’t make a fuss or insist upon your attention, it’s happy with the occasional night out with the girls in a Cosmo before settling snug and warm into a scone.

And yet, behind this unassuming exterior, the cranberry hides a secret.

It waits patiently at the center of the table, a few discs sliced off its cylindrical body, ribs from its former tin home glistening as Thanksgiving candlelight flickers. It may tremble when the massive bird is placed beside it, but the cranberry is not afraid.

It bides its time, modest and reserved, and then all at once springs into action. Called by the siren throat-clearing of dry turkey and over-salted stuffing, the cranberry dons its crimson cape and selflessly swoops in to save the day!

For the quiet cranberry is in fact a Superfruit. Rich in nutrients and antioxidants, its berry life is devoted to protecting immune systems from the evils of illness and infection, and providing a lifeline of bright, tart flavor in a world of basted blandness and turkey tedium.

Don’t wait until Thanksgiving to receive these berry blessings. Mad Mex is paying tribute to the courageous cranberry by making it our featured margarita for the month of November! Made with cranberry sauce, cranberry juice and grenadine, great with a Gobblerito or standing proudly on its own, the cranberry margarita will put a little hero in your mouth.

Cranberry margarita, we salute you!

When there’s no more room at Thanksgiving, the Gobblerito will walk the earth!

Each October, we ready ourselves for the coming of beaks and broomsticks, waddles and witches, feathers and frights. We place candles inside pumpkins on the porch in hopes of frightening him away. We disguise our children in costumes to keep them from becoming his dinner. We put out bowls of candy and tell ourselves if he eats the sweets, he won’t eat us.

But in our hearts we know, he can’t be stopped.

A hush falls over the Happy Hour crowd as something in the air changes…

An ominous rustling shakes the tortilla chips in their baskets…

Rings ripple out across the surface of a Pumpkin Pie margarita with each approaching stomp…

It’s baaaaaack!

This cornucopia of goodness will give you plenty to be thankful for. Savory roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn and gravy all packed inside a tortilla, giving new meaning to the word “stuffing”. A side of cranberry sauce rounds out this legendary feast. Wash it down the only way you can—with a Pumpkin Pie margarita.

Be hungry. Be very hungry.