Our friend Chrissy filed her dissertation paperwork and will be receiving her PhD in two weeks. This calls for a celebration! Tequila shots all around!

Yes, tequila shots: those things with which you and all your friends probably had at least one bad experience in college. (Second place: Jägermeister.) But! When you go for a nice bottle of añejo silver instead of the ubiquitous Jose Cuervo, somehow the experience improves. A lot.

The typical tequila shot requires salt and lemon. You lick the back of your left hand in the flat space at the junction of thumb and index finger, sprinkle on some salt, and pick up a wedge of lemon. In your right hand is the shot of tequila. Lick the salt, take the shot, and bite the lemon. One tequila shot.

That's okay if you want to strip all the enamel off your teeth. This method is better.

Instead of salt and lemon, we use cinnamon and orange. This combination was pioneered by our friend Joe, again during the much more tequila-centric days of college. And what a huge difference it makes.

Needless to say, you'll want to do this on a full stomach. These are tequila shots, after all.


(Yes, our grout is indeed 80 years old. Fun times!)

Joe's cinnamon orange tequila shots

cinnamon
orange wedges
good añejo tequila of your choice

We're going to do this step by step.

First, pour a shot of your tequila. Set it aside for a moment.

Lick your hand and sprinkle on some cinnamon. Not too much -- this is not the cinnamon challenge. Just get a tap or two out of the bottle.

Pick up a piece of orange in your cinnamon hand. It should look like this.


Pick up your tequila shot with your other hand. Lick the cinnamon, take the shot, and eat the orange.

Have you ever had such a good tequila shot?

If you object to getting cinnamon on your hand, you can change up the situation by simply sprinkling a little cinnamon on your orange slice. Then just take the shot and bite the slice, no licking required. Either way is delicious. This second way just won't leave your hand smelling charmingly like a pastry shop.

A fitting celebration for achieving a PhD.