Margarita

The margarita is a cocktail of tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice, usually shaken with ice and served in a glass with a salted rim. It is the best-known tequila cocktail and a standard order at taquerías and Mexican restaurants in the United States, though who first mixed it is still disputed.

Name

Margarita is the Spanish word for daisy. The daisy was a family of drinks popular from the Victorian era into the early twentieth century, built from a spirit, citrus and an orange liqueur or other sweetener. Drinks historian David Wondrich, as cited on Wikipedia and by Difford's Guide, treats the margarita as a tequila daisy rather than a wholly new invention. A drink called the Tequila Daisy was described by Iowa newspaper editor James Graham in the Moville Mail in July 1936 after a visit to Tijuana, and a Syracuse paper mentioned the name the same year. The word margarita in connection with the drink appears in print in 1953, in a Santa Rosa, California newspaper column about Ensenada and in a recipe printed by Esquire that December.

Competing origin claims

At least seven people or places have claimed the drink, and none of the stories has been proven. Difford's Guide and Wikipedia list the following.

Folklorist Sara Morales credited Doña Bertha of Bertha's Bar in Taxco, around 1930. Danny Negrete is said to have made it in 1936 at the Hotel Garci Crespo in Tehuacán, Puebla, for a girlfriend named Margarita, and the Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana has also been named as a birthplace in the early 1930s.

Vernon Underwood, a salesman for the Los Angeles distributor Young's Market, and bartender Johnny Durlesser are linked to the Tail o' the Cock restaurant in Los Angeles, with a date of 1937 that Difford's notes is about two years before the restaurant opened.

Carlos "Danny" Herrera said he created the drink at his Rancho La Gloria near Rosarito, Baja California, for actress and dancer Marjorie King, who could tolerate tequila but not other spirits. Wikipedia dates the claim to 1938, while Difford's gives 1947 or 1948. Wikipedia notes that the San Diego Reader disputed the story in 1992.

Hussong's Cantina in Ensenada says bartender Don Carlos Orozco named it in 1941 for Margarita Henkel. Francisco "Pancho" Morales told Texas Monthly in 1974 that he invented it on July 4, 1942, at Tommy's Place in Ciudad Juárez, after a customer asked for a drink he did not know; Wikipedia reports that the Mexican news agency Notimex considered his claim the strongest.

Dallas socialite Margaret Sames said she served it at a 1948 holiday party in Acapulco, though Wikipedia points out that José Cuervo was already running margarita advertisements in 1945. Santos Cruz of Galveston, Texas, is credited with making it for singer Peggy Lee in 1948.

Whatever its origin, the drink spread widely in the United States after 1955, when Young's Market became the national distributor of José Cuervo and backed it with advertising for tequila drinks, according to Difford's Guide.

Preparation and variations

The International Bartenders Association recipe uses tequila, triple sec and fresh lime juice in a ratio of 10 to 4 to 3, or 50, 20 and 15 milliliters. Britannica describes the drink in the same terms and notes that some versions add agave syrup or simple syrup. The drink is shaken with ice and strained into a chilled glass, often with half of the rim dipped in salt. Informal bars serve it over ice in tumblers, wine glasses or pint glasses.

The two best-known variants are the frozen margarita, blended or machine-churned with ice, and the Tommy's margarita, which replaces the orange liqueur with agave syrup. Fruit versions using strawberry, mango or other purées are common in restaurants.

Recipe

Reviews

See also

• Tommy's margarita
• Frozen margarita
• Paloma
• Tequila
• Cantarito

References

1. "Margarita". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
2. "History of the Margarita cocktail". Difford's Guide. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
3. "Margarita | Cocktail, Ingredients, Origins, & Variations". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 2026-10-10.