Jurassic World | Extinction Event Margaritas

Happy Cinco de Dino, everyone! Confused yet? Well, today marks the release of Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom, the fifth film in the Jurassic Park Franchise. To celebrate, I thought I would whip up some tasty beverages in reference to Jimmy Buffet’s brief but hilarious cameo in the previous film.

Click here to skip to the recipe for Extinction Event Margaritas inspired by Jurassic World!

Jurassic World = Cretaceous Carnival Food

For this recipe, I wanted to make something that would be appropriate for the park. Theme parks like Universal and Disney are fantastic at creating food and drink that embrace their fictional theme — like with Harry Potter’s Wizarding Worlds’ Butterbeer and Hogshead Ale, or Disney Pandora’s boba-topped Rum Blossoms. I also enjoy how the parks are currently seeking greener solutions for their cuisine — whether through sustainable farming, or keeping greenhouses on site.

With this in mind, I figured that Jurassic World would also follow the modern sustainable trends by incorporating locally grown flora into thematic consumables. This would also be a rather big change since Jurassic Park’s wasteful dessert buffets for no one, and the non-sustainable Chilean Sea Bass famous from the first film. But when I started researching plants from the Jurassic era, I understandably hit a snag.

Most Jurassic era plants that are (or whose descendants are) not exactly edible or palatable to humans. Ferns and gymnosperms (like cycads and conifers) dominated the plant world at this time. The closest edible descendants we still have are ginkgo and horsetail. The first is too bland to pair with tequila and lime juice, and latter is a pain in the proverbial donkey to find and is toxic in large quantities. Luckily I have fans who are even bigger dinosaur enthusiasts than I am and are utterly fantastic.

It wouldn’t make much sense to house a ton of herbivore dinosaurs and not give them anything to eat, so that’s why I went back to google and discovered that the period also bore angiosperms like magnolia, ficus, and sassafras.

Who’s to Blame?

Since the Cretaceous period ended in the extinction of the dinosaurs, most likely from an asteroid, and since an active volcano takes out most of the Isla Nublar, I thought something tasting of smoke and devastation would be the most appropriate. This is why I chose to use mezcal instead of the standard gold tequila, and also rimmed the glass in kosher salt, orange bitters, and liquid smoke.

For some Cretaceous era flavor, I mixed in sassafras tea concentrate. I managed to find a bottle of Pappy’s Sassafras Tea Concentrate at Dekalb Farmers’ Market here in Atlanta. I believe specialty grocery stores like Sprouts and Whole Foods should also carry it, but if that’s not the case, there’s also Amazon. Just whatever you do, make sure that your tea is safrole-free.

So here it is, a drink to end an era. Whether an asteroid, an active volcano, or a horde of hungry pterodactyls is to blame, be like the Buffet, enjoy a margarita in the face of impending doom.

recipe

Happy Cinco de Dino!