The Perfect Margarita Catered to Your Palate

The Perfect Margarita Catered to Your Palate

By Peyton Whittington Published January 2024

The Old Fashioned, the Mule, the Margarita: classic cocktails like these make the perfect foundation for experimenting with new flavors and modifying the original recipes to your taste preference. Margaritas are especially well-suited for ingredient tinkering, thanks to their simple, clean base spirit and lightly citrusy flavor profile.

That’s why we’ve put together 10 margarita variation recipes to suit 10 different flavor profiles. What’s YOUR flavor? Keep reading to find out!

Sour: Don Julio Blanco Margarita

First, let’s cover the basic margarita ingredients: tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice. The orange liqueur adds that signature citrusy sweetness, so we’ve swapped it for a touch of agave nectar in this recipe (a more neutral sweetener) to let the cheek-puckering lime juice take the lead in this sour-forward margarita.

Don Julio Blanco Margarita

The Recipe

In a cocktail shaker with ice, add tequila, lime juice and agave nectar. Shake and strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Spicy: Lunazul Tropical Heat Margarita

This recipe is for those who like it HOT. That means the folks who wouldn’t be caught dead without a bottle of tabasco sauce on them, who don’t break a sweat at Indian restaurants and who won’t eat fruit without a healthy sprinkle of tajin. This spicy margarita recipe incorporates a tajin rim and muddled jalapeños for maximum heat.

Lunazul Tropical Heat Margarita

The Recipe

Rim a glass with tajin and set aside. In a shaker, add papaya and muddle. Add jalapeño coins and gently break up. Add ice, tequila, lime juice and agave nectar. Shake and strain into prepared glass. Garnish with a jalapeño and lime wheel.

Rich & Creamy: Cazadores Avocado Margarita

Don’t worry, we don’t mean “rich & creamy” in the White Russian sense. We’re talking fresh avocado blended with cilantro, lime, tequila and orange liqueur. This frozen margarita sips like a smoothie with all the spicy, sweet, herbal flavors you expect in a perfect marg.

Cazadores Avocado Margarita

The Recipe

Rim glass with salt and set aside. In a blender, add ice, avocado, tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, cilantro and a pinch of salt to a blender. Pulse until smooth. Taste and add extra agave nectar to sweeten, and/or extra jalapeño to kick up the heat, if desired. Pulse until smooth. Serve in prepared glasses. Garnish with lime wedge, cilantro sprig and additional avocado slices.

Umami: Astral Blanco Turmeric Margarita

You may not be familiar with the term umami, but you’re certainly familiar with the flavor. Umami generally refers to foods with savory profiles, like broths, cooked meats, mushrooms and cheeses.

We know what you’re thinking: “Um, I don’t want a porcini mushroom margarita, thank you very much.” Stay with us here. Umami can also refer to the addition of certain spices, sauces and oils that give a dish (or drink) just enough savoriness to make it interesting and play nicely with other ingredients.

For our umami-rita, we’ve got a symphony of flavors with peppercorn-honey syrup and turmeric, a powerhouse umami spice. You’ve got sweet, umami and citrusy all in one glass. This one’s for the real adventurers.

Astral Blanco Turmeric Margarita

The Recipe

*Peppercorn-Honey Syrup

  • ½ cup honey

  • ½ cup water

  • 2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

For the peppercorn-honey syrup: In a saucepan over medium heat, bring honey and water to a boil, stirring until honey dissolves. Remove from heat and add peppercorns. Let cool and strain.

For the cocktail: In a shaker with ice, add tequila, lime juice and peppercorn-honey syrup. Shake and strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a sprinkle of turmeric.

Sweet: Prickly Pear Margarita

If you thought we were going to give you a sugary, cloying margarita recipe for the sweet flavor profile, think again. Sweet can be sophisticated, not syrupy. This recipe heavily features prickly pear, the colorful fruit of the nopales cactus. This underrated fruit’s juices taste like a delicious mix between bubblegum and watermelon, making for a delightful cocktail ingredient. Swap the artificial mixers for a bit of prickly pear juice or purée in your next drink and you’ll never go back.

Prickly Pear Margarita

The Recipe

*Agave Syrup

For the agave syrup: In a bottle, combine agave nectar and water. Shake well to combine.

For the cocktail: In a shaker with ice, add tequila, prickly pear purée, lime juice and agave syrup. Shake and strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a prickly pear slice and lime twist.

Smoky: Montelobos Maid

Margaritas are traditionally made with tequila, but this one uses mezcal for a smoky variation. Mezcal is known for its smoky flavor profile, and the mezcal used in this recipe is perfectly balanced with hints of woodsy sweetness. Combined with the bracing freshness of muddled cucumber, mint and lime, this margarita recipe is a flavor explosion you won’t want to miss.

Montelobos Maid

The Recipe

*Homemade Agave Syrup

For the homemade agave syrup: In a bottle, combine agave nectar and water. Shake well to combine.

For the cocktail: In a shaker, add cucumbers and muddle. Add ice, mint, mezcal, lime juice and agave syrup. Shake and strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a cucumber slice and mint sprig.

Tropical: DeLeón Blanco Coco-Limon Margarita

For the Piña Colada lovers who know all the coolest tiki bars in town, this coco-limon margarita brings all the best flavors from the tropics to your home bar. The addition of fresh lemon juice and coconut cream makes for a tropically delicious marg that’s begging to be enjoyed on a beach somewhere with your toes in the sand.

DeLeón Blanco Coco-Limon Margarita

The Recipe

Rim your glass with coconut sugar and sea salt mixture and set aside. In a shaker with ice, add tequila, coconut cream, agave nectar, lime juice and lemon juice. Shake and strain into prepared glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a dried lime wheel and two pineapple fronds.

Bitter: Stargarita

You might balk at the idea of a bitter margarita, but consider this: the Aperol Spritz, the Negroni and the Paper Plane are all bitter, citrusy, crowd-pleasing cocktails. Add Campari, the bitter orange liqueur that stars in two of the aforementioned cocktails, and you’ve got yourself a margarita that’s juicy, bitter and oh-so-delicious.

Stargarita

The Recipe

In a shaker with ice, add tequila, Campari, Cointreau and lime juice. Shake and strain into a glass.

Earthy: Jose Cuervo Beet Margarita

In parts of Eastern Europe, it’s customary to follow a shot of vodka with something savory and fermented, like a pickle. If you raised an eyebrow out of intrigue instead of disgust, this recipe is for you. Muddled red beet adds a sweet, earthy depth to this wild card of a margarita recipe. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.

Jose Cuervo Beet Margarita

The Recipe

In a shaker, add beet slices, lime juice and agave syrup. Muddle then, add tequila and ice. Shake and strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with beet greens.

Fruity: Grilled Watermelon Margarita

Finishing off with a trusty banger, we have a fruity-licious grilled watermelon margarita recipe. The kiss of grapefruit juice gives just enough tang to balance out the rich sweetness of the grilled watermelon syrup. Salud!

Grilled Watermelon Margarita

The Recipe

*Grilled Watermelon Syrup

  • Watermelon slices

  • 1 cup sugar

  • 1 cup water

For grilled watermelon syrup: Cut watermelon into slices and grill until both sides of watermelon have grill marks. Set aside to cool. In a pot over medium heat, add sugar and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved and let cool. In a blender, add grilled watermelon and simple syrup, blend and then fine strain.

For the cocktail: Rim a glass with tajin and set aside. In a shaker with ice, add Cointreau, tequila, lime juice, grapefruit juice and grilled watermelon syrup. Shake and strain into prepared glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Unleash your inner mixologist by building YOUR perfect margarita. Get your creative juices flowing by browsing the aisles of your local ABC Fine Wine & Spirits.

Interested in learning more? Visit our ABC Blog page.