mango daiquiri
With their brilliant yellow-orange color and sweet, creamy flavor, mangoes are far and away one of my favorite fruits. Serve this up with grilled jerk chicken for an easy, elegant dinner party.

ingredients
2 cups frozen mango chunks (peel, slice and freeze fresh, or take the easy way out and buy frozen mango chunks – Trader Joe’s carries them)
2 Tbsps. lime juice
2 Tbsps. sugar syrup
3/4 cup rum
1½ cups cracked ice
serves 4

Toss all the ingredients together in a blender and give it a good zizz, until the ingredients are well-combined and you have a nice, smooth frosty puree. Pour into 4 chilled cocktail glasses, and garnish each with a lime wheel.
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tequila mojito
A slightly different twist on the classic rum-based version ... think of this as the grown-up version of sparkling limeade.

ingredients
6-8 sprigs worth of fresh mint leaves
2 Tbsp. (1 oz.) simple syrup
2 tablespoons (1 oz., or approx. 1 lime) fresh lime juice
2½ oz. white tequila
1/3 cup chilled sparkling water/club soda
serves 1

Using the back of a spoon, smoosh the mint along with the simple syrup and lime juice in a tall glass. Fill half the glass with crushed ice, then add the tequila. Top it off with sparkling water; stir, garnish with additional mint sprigs, and enjoy.

jerk chicken
This spicy-salty-sweet marinade might look complicated, but don’t let the long ingredients list scare you off: it’s fairly quick to throw together, and can even be made a couple of days in advance. A bit of warning, however: Use rubber gloves when you’re working with the super-hot chiles called for in the ingredients list, or you’ll be in some serious, serious pain. You can use other chile peppers if you like, but adjust quantities accordingly, since chile peppers vary significantly in the amount of heat. For a milder marinade, seed and de-rib the chiles before tossing them in the food processor.

ingredients
2 scotch bonnet or habanero chiles
1 bunch scallions
1/2 onion
2 garlic cloves
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1½ tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp dried thyme or 1 T fresh thyme
1 T cooking oil
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
juice from 1 lime
1/2 tsp salt, plus more as necessary
6-8 boneless chicken breast halves , serves 6-8
time 15 minutes prep, plus marinating time

1 Wearing rubber gloves, wash the chile peppers and slice them in half. Cut away the stem end and discard. Break the scallions into 3" long sections, and discard the bottom 1-2" or so at the root end (you can also save it for stock, or pop the roots into soil and grow more scallions). Peel and roughly chop the onion; smash the garlic with the back of a knife and discard the papery peel.

2 Toss the chiles, scallions, onion, and garlic in a food processor and mash it all up to a coarse paste. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add in the thyme, allspice, nutmeg, salt, cinnamon, lime juice, soy sauce, vegetable oil, and brown sugar, stirring it all up until well-combined. Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly.

3 Trim the chicken of any excess fat. Marinate the chicken for at least two hours, but preferably overnight.

4 When you’re ready to eat, heat up your grill and cook it up! Boneless chicken breasts will take about 5 minutes on each side – the best way to test for doneness is to make a slice halfway through the thickest part of the chicken, and see whether the meat looks cooked through. It should be opaque and just the slightest bit pink when you take it off the grill (the chicken will keep cooking a bit after you remove it from the heat).