My favourite margarita recipe

When I was living in France a few years ago, I decided I wanted to make my own margarita cocktails. I looked online and found plenty of recipes that were all quite different. I tried quite a few of them but didn’t really like the outcome – I was searching for a particular margarita taste that I liked.

One day, I was discussing this with my French language teacher during a lesson and she told me that her husband had a good recipe. At the next lesson, she brought in this recipe and it turned out this was almost perfect. After making just a few small tweaks, I’ve been using this recipe ever since, and most people who try these margaritas really like them.

Beware though, these margaritas don’t really taste very alcoholic, but they certainly are. There’s a lot of alcohol in each one, so be careful and don’t overdo it.

Ingredients

This is what you need to make three margaritas (or two large ones like I’ve shown in the photo!), and you’ll need a decent sized cocktail shaker.

150 mL Tequila (white/silver)
90 mL Cointreau
60 mL Lime juice (preferably from fresh limes, otherwise get 100% lime juice in bottles from the supermarket – don’t use lime cordial!)
A dash of Grand Marnier, to taste
Sugar syrup (added to taste, but you’ll need quite a bit)
Plenty of ice
Some salt (I prefer Himalayan Sea Salt, but any will do)

Preparation

Squeeze the fresh limes to obtain the lime juice – measure and put in the cocktail shaker
Now is a perfect time to prepare the glasses for you margaritas – take one of the skins from the limes you’ve just squeezed and rub it around the rim of the glass – the idea is to moisten the rim with lime juice – now create a small pile of salt on a cutting board and turn the rim of the glass through the salt, with the aim to get some salt to stick around the rim of the glass – some people don’t like having salt around the rim of the glass, but many people love it
Measure and add the Tequila and Cointreau to the cocktail shaker
Add a dash of Grand Marnier – I just do this by eye and probably add about 20 mL – this smooths out the flavour of the margarita a bit and you can add more or less depending on your taste
Now pour in some sugar syrup – again I do this by eye – you’d need to add at least 40 mL in my opinion – if you don’t add enough it will taste sour – with practice, you’ll know how much you’ll need for your taste
Add ice – I like to have plenty of ice in my margaritas and generally fill my cocktail shaker to the brim with ice
Shake – doesn’t forget to put the lid on the shaker very well and then give it a vigorous shake for about 20 seconds – a good shake mixes all the components well and make a lot of difference
Pour into the glasses and enjoy

If you have any problems with this recipe and/or the instructions, please let me know (use the Contact link). Thanks.

My favourite margarita recipe