Photo by El Ponce.

Poncey-Highland Mexican restaurant El Ponce serves a house margarita based on the recipe for The Tommy, a fresh, less sweet version of the margarita that swaps out orange liqueur for agave nectar.

Legendary bartender and tequila master Julio Bermejo created this modern classic in the early 1990s at his family’s San Francisco restaurant, Tommy’s Mexican. The Tommy sees orange liqueur replaced with 100-percent agave nectar, resulting in a less sweet, much cleaner, additive- and refined sugar-free margarita. 

The El Ponce skinny margarita recipe can be shaken and poured over ice, batched with water added if not shaking, or blended with ice to make it frozen. For a flavored margarita, substitute half of the agave syrup with another fruit syrup, or muddle with fresh fruit.

Related stories:
• The top five recipes Rough Draft readers raved about in 2024
• Other recipes from the Rough Draft archives

Ingredients

  • 2 oz blanco tequila
  • 1 oz lime juice (fresh squeezed or flash pasteurized like Natalie’s pure lime juice)
  • 1 oz agave syrup
  • Rim optional: coarse salt, sugar, or Tajin

Directions

  1. Add all liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously until chilled. 
  2. Strain into a rocks glass with ice.
  3. Garnish with a fresh lime wedge.
  4. Optional rim of coarse salt, sugar, Tajin

Beth McKibben serves as both Editor in Chief and Dining Editor for Rough Draft Atlanta. She was previously the editor of Eater Atlanta and has been covering food and drinks locally and nationally for over 14 years.