Margarita
Prep time:
Tequila, orange liqueur and lime, shaken and served with a salted rim. It is the most famous Mexican cocktail in the world and also the most mistreated: nearly everything that ruins it comes from using a bottled mix instead of freshly squeezed lime.
Ingredients
- 50 ml blanco tequila
- 25 ml triple sec
- 25 ml fresh lime juice
- Salt for the rim
- Ice
Preparation
- Run a lime wedge around the rim of the glass and dip it in salt.
- Shake tequila, triple sec and lime juice with ice for 12-15 seconds.
- Strain into the glass over fresh ice.
Bartender’s notes
Why is it called a Margarita?
There are several stories, and none is proven. The most repeated is Carlos “Danny” Herrera, who supposedly created it at his restaurant in Baja California in the late 1930s for a customer, Marjorie King, who could only tolerate tequila. Others credit Hussong’s Cantina in Ensenada, for one Margarita Henkel, or Margarita Sames, a hostess in Acapulco. The best-founded explanation is more prosaic: “margarita” is Spanish for daisy, and the Daisy was a family of drinks made with a spirit, citrus and orange liqueur that people were drinking long before. The Margarita would simply be the tequila Daisy with its name translated.
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