Just in time for one of my favorite drinking holidays, let’s celebrate with a spin on the traditional margarita. Don’t know how to make a basic marg? 1) Shame on you. 2) We can remedy that real quickly.
The Classic Margarita
Makes one drink.
Ingredients:
- 2 ounces tequila, preferably blanco, but reposado will work, too
- 1 ounce Cointreau (or any orange liqueur, like Triple Sec)
- 1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice (or like, the stuff in that little lime bottle)
- Salt for garnish
Directions:
Combine the tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice in a shaker filled with ice. Moisten (lol, moist) the rim of the margarita glass with lime juice, then dip it in the salt for the rim. Shake and strain the drink into the glass and serve on the rocks!
Got that down? Great. Now onto these two new spins on the traditional recipe that I recently tried. I pulled these ideas off of Pinterest, then put my own twist on them based off of what I had in my fridge. (I also made some really disastrous blue margaritas that would have been better as a shooter, but we’re not going to get into those.) Since I’ve already tried and tested these two recipes, I can state with confidence that they’re pretty effing good.
Cherry Beergarita
Makes a pitcher.
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces cherry soda (I used a Shirley Temple soda, but any cherry soda will work, including Cherry 7up.)
- 12 ounces tequila
- 12 ounces Corona
- 12 ounces frozen limeade concentrate, thawed (I forgot to buy this, so I used 10 ounces of lemonade and 2 ounces of lime juice. It tasted just fine!)
- fresh limes, to garnish
Directions:
In a large pitcher, pour the soda, tequila, beer, and limeade. Stir and serve immediately. I threw in the lime slices because I’m lazy, but you can choose to use them as garnish.
Champagne Lemonade Margarita
Makes one drink.
Ingredients:
- 1 ounce tequila – same rules apply
- 1/2 ounce orange liqueur (Cointreau or Triple Sec or whatever it is the kids use nowadays)
- 3 ounces pink lemonade (I used regular lemonade, but pink would be prettier!)
- brut champagne
- lemon wedge (I skipped this and went with lime since I already had some.)
- coarse salt (The person whose Pinterest post I found recommended Pink Himalayan!)
Directions:
Use the lemon wedge to wet the rim of the cocktail class, then dip it in salt. The original directions read to add ice, tequila, orange liqueur, and lemonade into a cocktail shaker, shake well, and pour into a glass over ice. Then they say to top the glass with champagne.
I should note that I totally fudged this recipe and it’s now my new favorite cocktail. I dumped a bottle of Simply Lemonade and cheap champagne into a pitcher, then added twelve ounces of tequila and six ounces of Triple Sec. It was friggin delicious.
Whether you’re celebrating Cinco De Mayo or just want a margarita, enjoy your cocktail with a good friend – or your cat!
Champagne Lemonade Margarita Recipe
