Recipes
The San Antonio Margarita, Done Right
August 10, 2026 · 4 min read
A margarita is tequila, lime and something sweet. That is the entire drink. Everything that goes wrong with it happens when one of those three gets replaced by a bottle of neon sour mix, so start by throwing the mix out.
The ratio we use
Two ounces blanco tequila, one ounce fresh lime juice, three quarters of an ounce orange liqueur. Shake hard with ice for about twelve seconds and strain over fresh ice, or serve it up in a chilled glass. If your limes are especially sharp, add a bar spoon of agave nectar rather than more liqueur — sweetening with liqueur pushes the orange forward and buries the agave.
Salt one half of the rim only. That gives every sip a choice, and it keeps a salt-averse guest from handing the glass back.
Which tequila to reach for
Use a blanco made from 100% agave. Blanco is unaged, so the pepper-and-citrus character of the agave comes through the lime instead of hiding behind barrel notes. Espolòn Blanco is the honest weekday answer, Don Julio Blanco and Casamigos Blanco are the ones people ask for by name, and Fortaleza is where you go when the margarita is the point of the evening.
Save reposado and añejo for sipping or for a smoky riff. Aging costs money that a shaken drink with lime in it will not repay.
Lime and the orange bottle
Squeeze the limes the same day. Bottled lime juice is cooked and tastes like it, and it is the single biggest difference between a bar margarita and a kitchen one. Figure roughly one ounce of juice per lime, so a dozen limes covers a pitcher.
For the orange element, Cointreau is the clean standard. A dry curaçao leans a shade richer and a little less sweet. Grand Marnier is cognac-based and makes a rounder, heavier drink — good in the fall, heavy on a hot patio.
Scaling it for a crowd
The ratio holds. For a pitcher that pours about ten drinks: 20 oz blanco, 10 oz fresh lime, 7.5 oz orange liqueur, plus 5 oz cold water to stand in for the dilution shaking would have added. Chill it for at least two hours and pour over ice — never add ice to the pitcher, or the last glass is a lime-flavored puddle.
Taste before the first guest arrives. Limes vary week to week, and a small pour of agave nectar fixes almost anything.
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