The Grilled Garnish To Try With Your Next Tequila Cocktail

Some garnishes, while technically optional, are virtually baked into a drink's recipe. The olives or a twist on the edge of a martini. A perfect margarita's salted rim. The veritable salad crowning a Bloody Mary. Though riffs occasionally bubble up, particularly with all the creative ingredients you can introduce to a Bloody Mary, those are the tried-and-true additions that just make each cocktail more of what it is. And, once you've had the classics the way they're meant to be, you can make all manner of adaptations for tasty breaks from the expected.

Grilled pineapple, for example, is a great match for tequila. The heart of the agave plant from which tequila is made has a natural sweetness that shines or simmers in the finished spirit. Pineapple obviously shares similar notes, and it acquires a nice bit of caramelization that enhances its candy qualities when grilled. Whether the agave's presence is shyly subtle or more pronounced, it brings out the grilled pineapple's flavors, and vice versa. Bars like Jimmy in New York City have been grilling pineapple for things like mojitos (different liquor, same principle) for years. And it's easy to recreate at home.

If you've got an actual grill, great. You can toss fresh or canned pineapple rings right on the grates like you would with any old burger. Fire for a couple of minutes until those nice golden lines intensify, slice into wedges, and garnish those margaritas and palomas like you would with an everyday citrus.

You can also make grilled fruit kabobs like you'd do for a fruit salad. You'll need to cube the pineapple before piercing it with metal or water-soaked wooden skewers. The pineapple will acquire that nice caramelly color with this method, too, but with less surface area to spy for doneness, you'll want to check for softness as soon as a minute or so over the flames. The pineapples should give a little, neither charring nor rendering down to mush. You can then remove the whole skewer into your glass, or arrange just a few pieces in your drink. Absent a backyard cooking setup, you can more or less recreate the same grilled pineapple finish in a shallow pan over medium on the stovetop.