I first heard about iX MiXer through Nick, the Squire bartender, who reached out to me via e-mail after reading about my tequila-mixing woes in the Drunk of the Week column about Root Down. "You mentioned that you are a self-proclaimed tequila connoisseur," he wrote, "but have had some difficulty finding anything remarkable to mix it with. Through much taste-testing (read: quality control), we have found that our Citrus flavor goes amazingly well with tequila." Okay, I thought: I'll bite (or sip, as it were). Six hours later, belly up at the Squire, I became a believer.
Before I could convert, however, I had to tell Nick to stop pouring me Favor Drinks — heavy-handed, spine-tingling concoctions intended to get me fucked up faster. "Yes, Nick," I told him, "inebriation is the ultimate goal. The immediate goal is to find out whether 1 part Hornitos + 2 parts iX Citrus = awesome."
I drank a lot of iX over the next three weeks of "reporting" this story. I was quite surprised to discover that whiskey and Berrie worked well together, relieved when my wife – who typically orders Stoli Razberi with 7Up and a splash of cranberry – became a fan of Stoli and Berrie (so much easier to order!), and blown away by the Mile High Iced Tea.
As for the no-hangover claims: I had one every morning after an iX-MiXed night – but on none of those did I drink in moderation (or anything resembling it). In fact, one night Jeff and I opened and emptied a liter of Hornitos over the course of four hours. I lost an entire day to that hangover.
But it was worth every sip.
