Tommy's margarita
The Tommy's margarita is a margarita made with 100% agave tequila, fresh lime juice and agave syrup, with no orange liqueur. It is named for Tommy's Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, where bartender Julio Bermejo developed it in the late 1980s.
History
Tommy's Mexican Restaurant was opened in 1965 on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco's Richmond district by Tomas Bermejo and his wife, Elmy. According to the food site Please the Palate, Tomas had come to the United States from Yucatán as a guest worker under the Bracero Program and first ran a café named after his wife. The restaurant obtained a liquor license in 1976, and its early house margarita was a blended mix of tequila, simple syrup and fresh lime.
Their son Julio Bermejo joined the restaurant in the mid-1980s, moving from busboy to bartender. Difford's Guide dates his version of the drink to around 1987 or 1988; VinePair places its rise in the 1990s. Bermejo dropped the orange liqueur of a classic margarita and sweetened the drink with agave nectar, which kept the agave flavor of the tequila at the center. He also built Tommy's into a tequila bar that, by Please the Palate's account, stocked more than 350 brands, all of them 100% agave, and it was among the first bars in the United States to use 100% agave tequila as its well spirit.
In 2008 the drink became the first recipe tied to a single venue to be included in the International Bartenders Association manual, according to Please the Palate. Bermejo became widely known as an advocate for tequila in the United States and trained a number of bartenders who carried the drink to other cities.
Composition
The drink has three ingredients: tequila, lime juice and agave syrup, usually in a ratio of roughly 4 to 2 to 1. VinePair gives 2 ounces of blanco tequila, 1 ounce of lime juice and half an ounce of agave nectar, shaken and strained over fresh ice in a salt-rimmed rocks glass. Difford's Guide calls for reposado tequila in the same proportions, served in a chilled old fashioned glass with a lime wedge.
Because it uses no orange liqueur, the Tommy's is cheaper for bars to make, a point bartender Brett Adams raises in the VinePair piece. Difford's Guide notes that, without the liqueur, the drink is structurally a tequila sour, a form recorded in the 1939 Cotton Club drinks book.
Influence
The Tommy's is now a standard alternative to the classic margarita on cocktail menus and is often recommended to people who want the tequila to show more clearly. Its use of agave syrup, made from the same family of plants as the spirit, helped popularize agave syrup as a cocktail sweetener.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 fl oz (60 ml) blanco or reposado tequila, 100% agave
- 1 fl oz (30 ml) fresh lime juice
- 1/2 fl oz (15 ml) agave syrup (agave nectar thinned 2:1 with water, if very thick)
- Coarse salt for the rim (optional)
- Ice and a lime wedge
Steps
- If you want a salt rim, moisten the outside edge of a rocks glass with lime and roll it in salt, then fill the glass with ice.
- Combine tequila, lime juice and agave syrup in a shaker with ice.
- Shake for about 10 seconds.
- Strain into the glass over the fresh ice.
- Garnish with a lime wedge.
Agave nectar is thick and dissolves slowly in cold liquid; stirring it into the lime juice before shaking helps it blend.
Where to try it
- Tommy's Mexican Restaurant, San Francisco: Family restaurant opened in 1965 where Julio Bermejo developed the drink.
Reviews
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See also
References
- "The Tommy's Margarita Recipe". VinePair. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
- "Tommy's Margarita". Difford's Guide. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
- "Tommy's Mexican Restaurant Celebrating 50 Years". Please the Palate. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
- "History of the Margarita cocktail". Difford's Guide. Retrieved 2026-10-10.