Tommy's Margarita
Tequila, lime and agave syrup in place of orange liqueur, shaken and served over ice.
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A Tommy's Margarita, pale gold over ice in a rocks glass with a red straw
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring. Dilution is modelled rather than measured, as a fraction of the poured volume before any ice; dotted figures descend from that estimate.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
Glass
Vessel
158 ml of liquid plus 130 ml of cubed ice occupies about 288 ml, inside the 300 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 1m 37sSqueeze the 30 ml fresh lime juice and strain out the pips and pulp.
Combine the 60 ml blanco tequila, the 30 ml fresh lime juice and the 15 ml agave syrup in a shaker and fill it with cubed ice.
Agave syrup is thinner and less immediately sweet than orange liqueur, so a fully agave tequila does more of the work here than in a standard Margarita, and this is why the recipe insists on it over a mixto.
Shake for 12s until the tin frosts over.
Strain over fresh cubed ice into a rocks glass and drop in the lime wheel.
Common pitfallA salted rim was part of the original Margarita's answer to a mixto tequila's rougher edges. A fully agave tequila does not need that cover, which is why this version is conventionally served unsalted rather than rimmed out of habit.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
A San Francisco Margarita variant that swaps orange liqueur for agave syrup, credited to one bartender and later added to the IBA's official list under his restaurant's name.
Julio Bermejo, whose parents Elmy and Tommy opened Tommy's Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco in 1965, is credited with the recipe from around 1990, sources differing slightly on whether it was that year or the tail end of the 1980s 1 2. Bermejo made two changes to a standard Margarita: he moved from mixto tequila to a 100% agave bottling, and he replaced the orange liqueur and sugar syrup with agave syrup, a sweetener he had encountered through California health food producers rather than through bartending 2. The pairing was as much conceptual as technical (tequila and agave syrup share the same plant), and it let the tequila's own character carry the drink rather than being covered by a second spirit 1.
Bermejo also dropped the salted rim that had become standard on a Margarita, reasoning that it had developed largely to soften the rougher edges of a mixto tequila and was unnecessary once the tequila itself was 100% agave 2.
The drink's spread beyond the restaurant ran through individual bartenders rather than publication. Tony Abou-Ganim brought Bermejo in as a consultant at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and British bartenders Dre Masso and Henry Besant encountered the drink at Tommy's in 2003 and carried it into bars across Europe and beyond through their consultancy work 2. By 2008 it had gone from one restaurant's house pour to the first venue-specific cocktail added to the International Bartenders Association's official list 1.
- 1Tommy's margaritaen.wikipedia.org
- 2How the Tommy's Margarita Became a Modern Classicpunchdrink.com