The recipe is a near-match to the famous Rio Grande margaritas. The Rio Grande Restaurant started as a hole-in-the-wall in my hometown of Ft. Collins, Colorado. From there it spread to Boulder, Denver, Steamboat Springs, a much bigger restaurant in Ft. Collins, and now apparently, Austin, Texas.

The Rio margarita uses a particular lime juice, which is manufactured in Denver. The exact juice they use (Beich’s) is actually a proprietary product not available to the public – or so I’m told.

HOWEVER, an enterprising group called Royal Products uses the same manufacturer to produce Duffy’s Lime Juice – a very similar juice (a little greener, basically). So, since it’s available to the public, that’s what we use. The results are splendid.

Unfortunately for most people in the world, it ain’t all that easy to find. We know of two liquor stores that carry it regularly – Liquor Mart in Boulder, and Applejack Liquor in Lakewood (Denver). For those of us on the Western Slope, it’s been tough to find.

Until today. I spoke with the distributor of Duffy’s, one Innermountain Distributing out of New Castle. I’m told I can go into my local liquor store here in Paonia and arrange a special order of the stuff. I haven’t verified that yet with the local folks, but you can bet I will. For anyone else on this side of the hill looking for Duffy’s, you should also be able to do the same since Innermountain serves a huge portion of the Western Slope.

For those of you not fortunate enough to live in Colorado, let me know if you’d like me to start my own interstate shipping business.