A Spicy and Sassy Margarita Recipe!
This drink will get you hot and bothered — from the spice, of course
The mercury is rising, the wide-brimmed hats are sprouting up and we’ve replaced our evening tea with a spritz. Which means one thing: it’s summertime! What better way to celebrate the season than with a repertoire of refreshing libations? I’ve got a bunch of perfect recipes to share just for summer. So let’s get spritzy and shaken!
Kicking things off is the Spicy Margarita. Whether you add your heat into the tequila, a spicy agave syrup, or deploy a good old-fashioned Tajin salt rim (or a combination of one of the first two, and the third), this cocktail is sure to be a hit at your next party.
In this not-so-humble bartender’s humble opinion, it’s best to infuse the tequila with a flavor, like jalapeño. (Infusing your alcohol is way easier than you think — check out my tutorial here!) Hot tip: make sure to taste your doctored spirit (just a taste! No sense drinking all the booze during the prep phase) starting at around 20 minutes, and then every 10 minutes thereafter. Peppers infuse spirits quickly, and it doesn’t take much for a spicy infusion to go from “pleasant kick” to “needs a chaser of Pepto-Bismol.”
Spicy Margarita
Servings: 1
Copy Ingredients
Ingredients
- 2 oz. jalapeño-infused tequila (recipe below)
- ¾ oz. triple sec
- ¾ oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
- ¼ oz. simple syrup (I include this for texture, if you want to omit it, you are welcome to!)
Jalapeño-Infused Tequila
- 1 bottle blanco tequila. Use something good. Not expensive, but good. Select a tequila that really showcases the agave! Don Julio or DeLeón are pretty choice options in my house!
- 1 whole jalapeño (roughly chopped), plus the seeds of two additional jalapeños. (I prefer this ratio as it allows me to create a tequila that is spicy without infusing an overpowering jalapeño flavor.)
Directions
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For the jalapeño-infused tequila: Pour tequila into a glass container (1-liter Mason jars work great for this), and add the jalapeño seeds and whole jalapeño. Set a timer for 20 minutes.
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When the timer goes off, taste your tequila and determine if the spice level is where you want it. If it’s too mild, continue to infuse in 10-minute increments.
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Once your tequila is infused to your liking, strain through a fine mesh strainer (you don’t want jalapeño seeds sneaking through!), and pour back into your bottle. (You can use a funnel for this — a funnel is a great thing to have in your bartending kit!)
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For the margarita: Combine all ingredients into a shaker full of ice. Shake vigorously, until the shaker tin becomes uncomfortably cold to the touch.
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Strain into the glass of your choice, garnish with a lime wedge and a sliver of jalapeño (use the flesh from the peppers you pulled the seeds out of to reduce waste), and enjoy!
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Another hot tip: Label your infusions with the contents of the bottle and the date. There’s nothing worse than going for a shot of tequila and realizing too late that it’s spicy. Including the date is a bartender’s best practice — alcohol is a natural preservative and is incredibly shelf stable, but some of the organic compounds introduced during infusion can degrade over time and lose flavor. So if you’re picking up a bottle of infused spirit that has a label on it from last year, that might be the reason it doesn’t taste quite right.
