Cocktail · Medium strength
Spicy Margarita
The margarita with jalapeño heat — sunshine, now with consequences.
How to order it: Muddled jalapeño or chili liqueur, Tajín rim. Heat should hum, not scream.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2 oz blanco tequila
- 1 oz lime juice
- ¾ oz agave; 3 jalapeño coins, muddled
- Shake; double-strain over ice
- Tajín rim; jalapeño wheel
The story
The Spicy Margarita has no single inventor, which seems fitting for a drink that arose everywhere at once. As the agave boom of the 2000s and 2010s filled American back bars with serious tequila and mezcal, bartenders began muddling jalapeño and infusing chiles into the margarita's template, and drinkers responded with something close to fervor; by the 2020s it ranked among the most-ordered cocktails in the United States. The logic is old, though: chiles and lime have seasoned Mexican drinking far longer than any cocktail menu. It endures because heat sharpens everything the margarita already does well, and consequences, it turns out, sell.
Classic variation
The Spicy Margarita is a riff on a classic. Meet the original:
Adjacent pours