Margarita Magic

El Gato Cantina’s Emily Smith Serves Up Craft Cocktails

The Jalapeno-infused Margarita is one of Smith’s favorites.

Now she works as the bar manager at El Gato Cantina in Essex where she has been for the past two years. Instead of pursuing a nursing degree, Smith decided bartending was a better fi.

“I feel like I make people happier with food than with medicine,” says Smith, now 35.

May is traditionally one of the busiest times for El Gato Cantina. Smith says her specialty is the restaurant’s array of margarita cocktails and the specialty fruit and spice-flvored infusions that accompany them.

“I hear I make a really good martini, and I love Manhattans and Old-Fashioneds,” says Smith. But experimenting with margarita infusions is one of her favorite things, because it involves creativity to create something wonderful.

The classic margarita is made with tequila, orange liqueur, lemon and lime with salt around the rim of the glass. But Smith and her boss, George McKeeverParkes, the general manager and bar manager at El Gato Cantina on Church Street in Burlington, love to mix and match ingredients.

For Cinco de Mayo, they will add infusions of mango, pineapple or use Chambourd or St. Germain liqueurs. And they show that margaritas can be lined with more than just salt.

The Jalapeno-infused Margarita and the Birthday Girl Margarita, a spicy strawberry, mango Margarita, are among Smith’s favorites.

El Gato Cantina is a very casual, fun eatery, located on the lower end of Church Street, just south of Church Street Marketplace. The restaurant offers a wide variety of traditional Mexican dishes and appetizers made from family recipes. “We pride ourselves on making quality food cantina-style, like you’d find on th streets of Mexico,” according to El Gato

Cantina’s website.

In addition to Jalapeno-infused tequila, the eatery also offers Orange and Tricky Kitty special infusions. Smith says that when they infuse their tequila spirits with various flvors, they let it sit for a few days to create the best results.

Smith is always reading cocktail recipes and gathering ideas online or via mixology TV shows. She understands that it is important to give customers the cocktails they want, but it is also good to introduce new cocktails, too.

She said it took her a while to gain the confidene to create exotic cocktails. “It is a constant learning process,” Smith observes. She does not know if she will ever reach the higher plateau of craft cocktail creation that she seeks. But as every new idea leads to a new cocktail creation, Smith feels she is getting closer.

Her bartending journey began when she first etered the food service industry in high school. Smith recalls that she worked at Wendy’s for more than three years before attending nursing school.

When she began mixing and serving drinks at a local Chili’s restaurant, Smith discovered how much she enjoyed it.

She also worked at Hatchet, in Richmond, where she learned about craft cocktails. After that, she worked at the Big Spruce for a year.

Smith says she frequented the El Gato Cantina restaurant in Essex and thought it would be a fun place to work. A friend who worked there helped her get a job. When her friend went on maternity leave, Smith took over as bar manager.

Right from the start, Smith says, “it felt like a home away from home.”

When Smith is not doing things with her two kids and her partner, she enjoys her “Gato Fam” at the restaurant.

“We have a fun work atmosphere. We want it to be fun for our customers and the people who work here,” Smith explains. “I like the fast pace of the restaurant and I love the food.”

El Gato Cantina also takes pride in their signature margarita cocktails. “People will come in and say this place has ruined margaritas for them, because they can’t get them as good anywhere else,” Smith relates. She loves acheiving the “wow” factor when a customer delights after they try one of her cocktails. Her customers sense Smith’s passion for mixology, especially when she is able to convince them to try something a little different. For instance, she may have a customer say they love margaritas, but don’t care for the salt around the rim. Smith says she will make a suggestion to go with half salt, half sugar and ask them to try it.

“You see their eyes light up and think ‘Yeah, I told you,’ when you get people out of their comfort zone.”

“We get a lot of the same customers over and over. The way to come back and see you — makes you feel good,” Smith says. Her advice to others who want to get into bartending is simple. “Listen when someone has constructive feedback or wisdom to share. Always be willing to try adventurous things. It’s okay if you make mistakes. Just have fun with it. It’s an awesome profession as long as you like people and you like to have creativity in your life.”