Spicy margarita recipes: 3 expert bartenders share their best tips for adding heat to your cocktail

Yahoo

22-02-2025

Like your margarita with a little bit (or a lot) of heat?
When you sidle up to the bar and order a spicy margarita, there's a few different ways that bartenders can add a kick to the classic tequila cocktail. These spicy margarita methods are ones you can easily replicate at home.
Ahead, learn the art of making a perfect spicy margarita, from three bartenders who have made thousands of them.
You can make any of your favorite margarita recipes spicy.
Some common ways to make homemade spicy margaritas include infusing a bottle of blanco tequila with some jalapeno peppers — but note this requires some advanced planning as you'll want your tequila to soak up the pepper's spices for about a week.
Another option? Buy bottle of spicy tequila, which means the agave spirit has already been infused with hot peppers. A bartender favorite is Tanteo Tequila, which makes both habanero tequila and jalapeno tequila, both which work beautifully in a homemade spicy margarita.
Another option is to add spicy bitters to your spicy margarita mix, like Bittermens Hellfire Habanero Shrub Cocktail Bitters.
Or, for a fresh spicy margarita, muddle a jalapeno or Serrano pepper in your shaker, a trick that a longtime bartender on the Santa Fe Margarita Trail uses to make his spicy margarita recipe that he's shared. Depending on the pepper you use, you can get a varying degree of heat!
So, when it comes to making a batch of homemade cocktails for National Margarita Day (Feb. 22) or beyond, you've got lots of options for how to spice up your margarita mix with peppers.
I tapped three expert bartenders to share their favorite spicy margarita recipes.
The bartender: Leo Granados, who's been with La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico for nearly three decades. Santa Fe is known for its margaritas, and La Fonda is one of the stops on the Margarita Trail, which features more than 50 tequila cocktails.
This is how Granados makes his spicy Serrano margarita for La Fonda's Bell Tower Bar.
Ingredients:
1.5 oz Exotico Tequila
0.5 oz Triple Sec
1.5 oz lime juice
⅓ of a Serrano pepper muddled
Tajin for the rim.
Instructions:
1. Mix all ingredients
2. Shake with ice
3. Pour into a Tajin-rimmed glass. To get a Tajin rim, you can rub a cut lime around the rim of a glass and then roll it on to a plate with Tajin seasoning.
The bartender: Alec Kass is the beverage director at the Civilian Hotel in New York City. He shares the perfect spicy margarita recipe for a drink he's named the Spicy Encounter. 'The heat level is enough to sizzle but doesn't burn,' Kass says.
The spicy margarita recipe is not only delicious, but it's also wonderfully simple because it's all equal parts, Kass says. You can scale up the recipe easily, exchanging ounces for cups to have a perfect pitcher of spicy margaritas for a crowd.
Ingredients:
0.75 oz. Tanteo Blanco
0.75 oz. Tanteo Jalapeno
0.75 oz. Ancho Reyes Verde
0.75 oz. Puréed Passionfruit*
0.75 oz. Lime Juice
0.75 oz. Agave Syrup (3:1 Agave:Water)**
* Puréed Passionfruit: Make it with passionfruit in a blender, mixed and strained is always preferred, but companies like Boiron and Perfect Purée make very good Passionfruit purées, Kass says.
** For your agave syrup, simply mix three parts agave nectar with one part water and stir to combine. The water should allow the nectar to flow more steadily and incorporate into the cocktail.
Instructions:
1. Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker with ice and shake briefly but hard.
2. Strain to a rocks glass with black salt and tajin on the rim.
Optional: Float mezcal on top and garnish with a lime wheel.
The bartender: Eric Garcia, from Toro by Richard Sandoval located within Hotel Clio in Denver, shares how to make a perfect spicy margarita with your own Serrano-infused tequila, plus a homemade sweet-and-sour mix.
Ingredients:
1.5 oz Serrano-infused tequila
2 oz sour mix**
1 slice lime wedge
Black salt for the rim
A Serrano pepper slice and lime wheel or wedge for garnish
Pour one bottle of your favorite Blanco tequila into a cambro (or a vessel that can hold a good amount of liquid). Cut six whole Serrano peppers into halves and mix into tequila. Let tequila infuse with Serrano peppers for one week. Strain Serrano peppers from tequila.
A homemade sweet and sour mix makes a much higher quality margarita than the pre-made stuff. To make homemade sweet and sour mix shake ¼ cup simple syrup, ¼ cup fresh
lemon juice and ¼ cup fresh lime juice together in a covered container. This recipe makes 3/4 cup and can refrigerated up to one month.
Homemade simple syrup is easy to make at home. Shake 1/2 cup sugar and ½ cup hot water together in a covered container to dissolve the sugar. Let it cool.
Instructions:
1. Rub a lime wedge around the side of a highball glass in an upside-down
triangle shape to moisten the glass. Pour a few tablespoons of coarse black salt into a saucer. Roll the side of the glass in the salt and shake off the excess, being sure not to get any salt inside the glass.
2. In a shaker, add ice, pour infused tequila and sour mix, and shake vigorously.
3. Pour into the salted margarita glass and garnish with a sliced Serrano and lime wedge.