The margarita's origins are murky but its popularity is certain.
The margarita’s origins, like that of many cocktails, are lost in the booze-filled haze of the past. According to one version, favored by Jose Cuervo tequila, the drink was invented in 1938 in honor of performer Rita de la Rosa. Another margarita-origin story has the drink being created by Dallas socialite Margarita Sames in 1948 — though this claim is particularly dubious because Jose Cuervo was already running margarita ad campaigns for the drink several years earlier in 1945. A more likely tale is the drink evolved — possibly in multiple places independently — from The Daisy. Margarita is Spanish for “daisy” and that drink was made with lime juice, brandy, a liqueur (often triple sec) and soda water. If you substitute tequila for the brandy in the drink and eliminate the soda, you get something very similar to a modern margarita.
Less mysterious is the drink’s popularity. Featured in1953 in Esquire it has been topping the bartending charts ever since. The margarita is currently the most popular cocktail in the U.S. and has been since 2015, the first year the data was tracked. Today the drink is endlessly riffed on by bartenders and home mixologists. At a recent margarita tasting at my house, we tried four classic margarita recipes. These recipes will help you trace the frozen concoction’s evolution in liquid form and give you a solid foundation to build your own variations on. For instance, if you want to add some smoke substitute a smoke-forward mezcal for the tequila or just add a splash of mezcal. You can also add spice by slicing one or two pieces of jalapeno peppers and adding them to the mixing jar with your other ingredients. Personally, I tend to enjoy all these recipes best with mezcal in place of tequila and a jalapeno slice added to the cocktail shaker.
The Original Margarita
This primordial margarita recipe is less sweet than most modern versions of the drink. It uses only lime juice, Cointreau and tequila and does not use the agave syrup found in most modern recipes. The Original Margarita performed surprisingly well in our recent taste test. The drier (less sweet) construction of the cocktail makes it more lime juice-forward and surprisingly refreshing. Though we all agreed, other versions of the drink were superior, making this version is a good exercise to get an appreciation for a margarita’s building blocks.
Tommy’s Margarita
The Tommy’s Margarita recipe was created by Julio Bermejo in the early 1990s at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco. The recipe replaces the orange liqueur normally featured in the drink with agave nectar. The result is a sweeter cocktail that can be a little more tequila-forward. The drink performed well in our taste-testing and was even one panelist's favorite. I also like this variation because it’s easier to make even when you don’t have orange liqueur on hand.
Modern Margarita
Most modern margarita recipes avoid choosing between the agave syrup featured in Tommy’s Margarita and the orange liqueur featured in the traditional recipes and instead use both. This results in a fuller-flavored cocktail, though arguably each individual ingredient stands out less. This margarita recipe is probably most similar to a good margarita you get at a bar and restaurant. During our test, it was one of the most popular versions of the drink. I had gravitated to Tommy’s Margarita in recent years but found I preferred this ever so slightly in our taste test.
Margarita Soda
What’s old is new again. If it’s true that the margarita evolved from The Daisy then the first versions of the drink likely featured club soda making them highballs. The Margarita Soda at Hellbender Nighttime Cafe in Queens recently featured in Punch has taken the drink’s evolution full circle. The recipe adds club soda to a base margarita recipe inspired by a Tommy’s Margarita. Doing this to the recipe not only makes the drink last longer — you’re adding more liquid after all — but also somehow made it more refreshing and seemed to highlight rather than dilute the ingredients. This was the surprise star of our taste test and a new favorite of all present. Personally, when I enter Margarittville this summer, I’ll be doing so, more often than not with this recipe.
