A margarita is a cocktail consisting of tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice often served with salt on the rim of the glass. The drink is served shaken with ice (on the rocks), blended with ice (frozen margarita), or without ice (straight up).
Although it has become acceptable to serve a margarita in a wide variety of glass types, ranging from cocktail and wine glasses to pint glasses and even large schooners, the drink is traditionally served in the eponymous margarita glass, a stepped-diameter variant of a cocktail glass or champagne coupe.
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Authentic Mexican Margarita
Ingredients
- 2 ounces blanco tequila
- ½ ounce orange liqueur
- 1 ounce lime juice freshly squeezed
- ½ ounce agave syrup
- lime wheel garnish
- kosher salt garnish
Instructions
- Add tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice and agave syrup to a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake until well-chilled.
- Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.
- Garnish with a lime wheel and kosher salt (optional).
Video
The Story of the Margarita
The history of the Margarita is steeped in mythology but we can assess from the timeline that it came into popularity in Northern Mexico sometime in the 1930s. The oldest reference I could find, came from a Newspaper in 1936 when James Graham wrote about a new drink he discovered being served in restaurants and bars while on vacation in Tijuana, Mexico. It was called a Margarita (Daisy in English) which was made from Tequila, Liqueur, and Lime Juice.
By 1945, Jose Cuervo was running ad campaigns for it with the slogan, “Margarita: It’s more than a girl’s name.” They claim the cocktail was invented in 1938 by a bartender in honor of Mexican showgirl Rita de la Rosa.
Others have claimed to be the inventor but they all occur after the original 1936 Newspaper article.
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