How To Make A Perfect Spicy Margarita—According To Hotel Bartenders

02.05.2024 - 22:59 / forbes.com

Like your margarita with a little bit 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 and jalapeno infusions, 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 Cinco de Mayo or beyond, you’ve got lots of options for how to spice up your margarita mix with peppers.

We 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:

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:

* Puréed Passionfruit: Make it with passionfruit in a