The Best Margarita Recipe
Is there anything better than the first zingy sip of a perfect homemade margarita on the rocks? A salted rim, the punchy heat of tequila, sweet orange liqueur and fresh lime juice. My margarita recipe is the perfect balance of the classic three margarita ingredients: Tequila, lime juice and orange liqueur. Easy, classic cocktail heaven!
Serve these easy margs with chips and guacamole and make every day Cinco De Mayo! For a lighter riff on a margarita, try my easy ranch water recipe, or get wild and whip up strawberry margaritas. For a kid-friendly quencher, serve up some aguas frescas, too!
Classic Margarita Ingredients
- Tequila. Use blanco tequila (meaning one that is not aged) and use the best quality you can to make your margarita. You deserve it, and your head will thank you!
- Freshly-squeezed lime juice. One lime has roughly one ounce of juice, so for our recipe—which calls for 1.5 oz. of lime juice—you’ll need two limes to make one margarita.
- Orange liqueur. Cointreau, Grand Marnier and Combier are all nice choices here, but any good-quality triple sec will work.
Pssst: My Secret Ingredient
I add Angostura bitters to my margarita recipe! A lot of people add simple syrup or agave, but I like to add a dash of bitters to add a lot of complexity and brighten up the drink. Bitters work in cocktails sort of like salt works in most recipes! They light up all of the other ingredients. However if you want to keep your margarita as classic and simple as can be, it is OK to skip this ingredient.
How To Make The Best Margarita
- Make a margarita garnish decision: Are you a salted rim person? Or a no-salt person? If you’re a salted rim person, pour some kosher salt on a plate. Rub the rim of the glass with a lime slice so that the salt has something to cling to, and then dip the rim of your cocktail glass (use a classic rocks glass) in the salt.
- Juice the limes. I use a trusty citrus juicer for this job.
- Fill your glass with ice.
- Combine the tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur in an ice-filled cocktail shaker.
- Shake that margarita! Cover the shaker and shake it vigorously for 20 seconds until it’s super frosty!
- Strain that beautiful cocktail into your ice-filled rocks glass and enjoy.
Variations
- Make it spicy! My spicy margarita recipe is arguably even better than the classic version. I especially love it in winter (yes, I drink margaritas in winter! National Margarita Day is Feb. 22, folks!) when I am craving heat.
- Make your margarita springy! When the weather turns and the farmers markets are brimming with ruby red rhubarb, get a little fancy and mix up a rhubarb-mint margarita with Jalapeño Tequila. Yum! Or try a mojito for another minty springy quencher.
- Make it blended! My strawberry marg recipe will hit the spot if you’re craving an icy version.
Easy Margaritas For A Crowd
Make a pitcher of margaritas! It’s easy to scale up the classic margarita recipe if you want to serve it to a crowd. My margarita ratio is 4 parts tequila: 3 parts lime juice: 1 part orange liqueur. So to mix up a batch of margaritas for 6 people, fill a pitcher with ice and stir together:
- 12 ounces of tequila
- 9 ounces of fresh lime juice
- 3 ounces orange liqueur
- To serve: a single serving of this margarita recipe is about four ounces, so pour about four ounces of the stirred margarita mixture into an ice-filled rocks glass (salt rim optional).
More Classic Cocktail Recipes To Try
Cheers!
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