Tajin Clasico Seasoning comes to us from Mexico and is a blend of dried chilies, lime juice and salt. Described as “the ulti­mate fruit booster”, this sea­son­ing is ubiq­ui­tous in Mexico, lib­er­ally sprin­kled on apples, oranges, can­taloupe… basi­cally it adds a lit­tle “pop” to any fruit. It might strike you as unusual at first to add salt to fresh fruit, but the salt com­bined with the heat from a lit­tle chili mar­ries beau­ti­fully with the tangy lime, espe­cially on fruit that is more sweet than sour, such as man­goes or other tropicals.

For those of you try­ing to wean your­selves from dump­ing sugar on your morn­ing grape­fruit, try a few shakes of this; a lit­tle goes a long way!

A com­mon snack in Mexican mar­kets is a tajin fruit cup; chopped mixed fruit sprin­kled with tajin and enjoyed at base­ball games and foot­ball matches. Another more savory way to enjoy it is on hot but­tered corn on the cob, or sprin­kled on pan-fried or baked fish.

The next time you make a Bloody Mary or Caesar, forego the cel­ery salt and rim your glass with this stuff; spicy, acidic and salty, it will add a Mexican twist to an old favorite; the com­bi­na­tion of salt and lime is de rigueur in any margeu­rita, so a lit­tle chili on top of that def­i­nitely adds some wow fac­tor. The bright red rim also makes for a strik­ing con­trast to a lime mar­guerita, as well as high­light­ing the ruby red­ness of a frozen straw­berry daiquiri.

The label reminds you, “This is not a candy.”  It is sort of addic­tive, a kind of grown up Lick-M-Aid.  Next time you feel like a spicy ver­sion of sour patch kids, reach for this stuff and pucker up!

Tajin Strawberry Marguerita

Ingredients

Ice

4 straw­ber­ries

Grenadine to taste

2 ounces of Tequila

½ ounce of Cointreau or orange fla­vored liqueur

TAJÍN Clásico Seasoning

Preparation

In a blender process 4 ice cubes, straw­ber­ries, a dash of grena­dine (depends on how sweet you like the drink), tequila, and the orange liqueur. Blend every­thing on frappé. Serve in a mar­tini glass with the rim frosted in TAJÍN Clásico Fruit Seasoning. To gar­nish, par­tially slice a straw­berry and coat it with TAJÍN Clásico Seasoning, before plac­ing it on the rim of the glass.