In 1971, young Mariano Martinez started serving margaritas in his new restaurant, Mariano’s Mexican Cuisine. His customers created a high demand for the newly popular frozen drink. With their blenders hard-pressed to produce a consistent mix for the drink they made from Mariano’s father’s recipe, his bartenders were in rebellion.
Then came inspiration for the beleaguered boss in the form of a Slurpee machine at a 7-Eleven, a machine invented in Dallas in 1960 to make carbonated beverages slushy enough to drink through a straw. But the 7-Eleven Corporation wouldn’t sell him a Slurpee machine. He and a friend, a chemist named John Hogan tinkered with the recipe (hint: the secret is in the amount of sugar) and adapted a soft serve ice cream machine to make margarita slush, and word of mouth signaled a hit for his fledgling business.
The machine was such a success that, according to Martinez, “it brought bars in Tex-Mex restaurants front and center. People came to Mariano’s for that frozen margarita out of the machine.” Mariano couldn’t patent something already patented, so many versions of the frozen margarita machine subsequently came into the market.
His machine, however, made Mariano’s restaurant a success, leading to other restaurants (with their own commercial machines pouring out the margaritas). When Mariano decided to close the old restaurant and move it to a new location, he decided to retire the machine. We asked for it. So, after 34 years of blending lime juice, tequila, ice, and sugar for enthusiastic customers, the world’s first frozen margarita machine was retired to the Smithsonian.
From an article found on the Smithsonian blog
RecipeReminiscing 