Could the first American version of the margarita truly have been served on the current site of La Jolla United Methodist Church? That’s the story recounted on the wall of the newly inaugurated Bird Rock History Museum (located within the Bird Rock Coffee Roasters facility at 5627 La Jolla Boulevard).
The brief account cites a 2006 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one source for the claim, but a little online sleuthing reveals that the Post-Gazette account appeared just days after a lengthy obituary for 91-year-old “margarita pioneer” Albert Hernandez Sr. was published in the San Diego Union-Tribune. As obit writer Jack Williams told the story, Hernandez in 1947 had been working as a bartender at the La Plaza restaurant, which occupied a mission-style building on La Jolla Boulevard. (Originally used as a station on the trolley line connecting downtown San Diego with La Jolla, the building later housed the restaurant and an arts and crafts school, then in 1953 became the home of the church that occupies the much-expanded complex today.)
According to the obituary, Hernandez’s boss in 1947 spent a lot of time in Mexico and told his bartender about a drink being served in Rancho La Gloria, “midway on the old road that connected Tijuana with Rosarito Beach.” Supposedly the bartender there, one Carlos “Danny” Herrera, had concocted a drink for an actress named Marjorie King, who claimed to be allergic to all hard liquor except for tequila. In her honor, he named it the margarita.
Hernandez then began trying to reproduce the drink, as his boss recalled it, and eventually settled on a formula of 1 ounce of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila, a half-ounce of Cointreau, and an ounce of fresh lime juice. Originally mixed with crushed ice, he later began processing the ingredients in a blender. In a 1986 interview, Hernandez credited the restaurant owner with coming up with the idea of dipping the glass rim in salt, adding that by the mid-1950s, every bar in San Diego was serving some variation on this theme.
Alternative claims for the margarita’s origins do exist, but enough of them include a connection to Herrera or at least Baja that I find it at least possible that the drink’s US incarnation did first take shape at the La Jolla location.
Although it’s a bit of a stretch to call the new historical repository a “museum” (it consists of a number of large posters that have been mounted on the southern interior wall of the coffeehouse), it includes many other interesting tidbits, particularly for Bird Rock residents. Particularly charming is the chronicle of the white-washed stones that once announced the name of the community on one of the local hillsides. The only problem is that it can be impossible to read the posters, if patrons are sitting at the tables next to them. But that’s also an incentive to come back.
For people who work in the coffee trade, evaluating the quality of any given bean is a lot more complicated than simply brewing up a pot and taking a sip. To evaluate a given coffee’s flavor and aroma, pros engage in “cupping,” a ritual that’s a lot more akin to an oenophilic wine-tasting than it is to the standard American coffee klatsch. Now one local coffee master is sharing the cupping experience with the public.
with individual farmers, to help them earn much more than they would within a local co-op. Patton also has begun to work on serving another basic human need in the growing communities he patronizes, bringing ni simple water-filtration systems.
