By Ed Avis
Pez Cantina in Los Angeles, like many Mexican restaurants, started selling cocktails to-go when the State of California allowed them last spring. The bottled cocktails, which adhere to the restaurant’s high quality standards, have helped ease the blow of COVID.
Pez offers a dozen bottled cocktails, ranging from Margarita Clasica to Cucumber-Jalapeno Margarita to Pez Paloma. They’re packed in 32-oz bottles that serve five to six cocktails and sell for $48 to $52 per bottle.
“The Hibiscus Margarita is selling the best,” reports Lucy Thompson, co-owner of the restaurant with her husband, Bret Thompson. “It’s got that beautiful red coloring and people love how it looks and tastes. I would say our second-best seller is Cucumber-Jalapeno Margarita – it’s spicy and has the freshness of the green in it.”
Quality Production
Naturally, given Pez Cantina’s culinary reputation, the bottled cocktails feature top-flight ingredients.
“It’s the same exact recipe as we use at the bar,” Bret explains. “They are refrigerated; they’re not pasteurized or anything like that. And there’s about 12 ounces of tequila in the bottle – it’s a pretty stiff cocktail.”
The non-alcohol ingredients are all natural. The Paloma, for example, includes real tamarindo and fresh grapefruit juice, and the Margarita Clasica features real agave syrup.
The cocktails are made in 5-gallon batches at the restaurant two or three times each week. The finished drinks are poured into glass bottles using funnels, then a black plastic lid is screwed on and secured with shrink-wrapped black plastic. The labels, which the Thompsons designed themselves, are printed in-house and adhered to the bottles.
In addition to selling the cocktails to-go, Pez allows customers on the patio to order them: “Customers order them as bottle service in the restaurant,” Lucy says. “It comes with a complimentary plastic shaker. We shake up the first one, and then they’re on their own. And they’re happy as can be. A bottle can serve up to six margaritas at a much better price than if they bought them separately. And for us it’s better, because when we’re busy we can serve other tables.”
A Retail Future?
The Thompsons have succeeded in the retail space with Pez Powder, a cocktail rimmer and flavor enhancer that is available in California grocery stores, so it’s logical that they may try to sell their cocktails at retail as well.
“I’ve gone to Bevmo, a big box liquor chain, and they have one brand of refrigerated margarita mix; all the rest use high-pressure pasteurization,” Bret says, adding that they may consider canning the cocktails for retail instead of bottling them, and may offer just a mixer without alcohol. “I don’t think there’s a lot of competition out there for a cocktail like ours.”