This story is part of a partnership between “City Lights” / WABE” and Rough Draft Atlanta called “The Beverage Beat with Beth McKibben.” As a regular “City Lights” contributor, McKibben joins the program monthly to highlight her most recent Rough Draft story on Atlanta’s cocktail, wine, coffee, and nonalcoholic beverage scene.
Whether served on the rocks, frozen, or in glassware akin to a gold fish bowl, the margarita can turn an otherwise blah Tuesday into a mini celebration without much effort. It’s just that kind of cocktail.
But as a classic drink with a riffable recipe (two parts tequila, one part orange liqueur, one part lime juice), the margarita has transformed from a singular cocktail into an entire category.
“It’s an easy beverage to consume because it is, by nature, a balanced cocktail. It’s not super booze forward but highlights the tequila or whatever agave spirit you choose,” El Ponce owner Rosa Thurnher said. “It just appeals to a broader audience mainly because the flavor is appealing and similar to an adult lemonade.”
The Poncey-Highland Mexican restaurant sells approximately 250 margaritas a day. That number can quadruple on Cinco de Mayo, becoming a margarita marathon for El Ponce.
Thurnher took over as owner of El Ponce in 2016, changing the house margarita recipe, which included triple sec and simple syrup, to a fresher variation that now features agave syrup instead of orange liqueur as the sweetener.
A hazy history
No one knows for certain who invented the margarita, considered the most popular cocktail in America.
Some say the margarita was based on a Daisy, a category of sour cocktails made with a base spirit, citrus juice, and orange liqueur, topped with soda water. Margarita is Spanish for “daisy,” and if you remove the soda from the recipe, it becomes the recipe for the margarita we know today.
Then there’s Danny Negrete, a hotel manager in Puebla, Mexico, who was said to have invented the margarita in 1936, naming it for his girlfriend as a gift.
Tequila brand Jose Cuervo credits the margarita to a bartender who supposedly created the drink to honor Mexican showgirl Rita de la Rosa in 1938.
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Another theory attributes the invention of the margarita to Francisco “Pancho” Morales in 1942, who claims he created the drink at the bar Tommy’s Place in Juarez, Mexico. The story goes that a woman entered the bar and asked for a Magnolia. Morales couldn’t remember the exact recipe, so he whipped up a tequila cocktail with lime juice and Cointreau.
Still another theory credits its invention to a Dallas socialite of the same name, who served the tequila concoction to guests during a Christmas party at her vacation home in Acapulco in 1948.
Related story: A dessert and cocktail bar will open behind El Ponce
The right tequila
When mixing up a margarita, Thurnher recommends reaching for blanco tequila, rather than reposado, a type of tequila aged and rested in barrels like bourbon and whiskey.
“I have made some good margaritas with reposado, but for me, if you put a reposado in a margarita, a lot of times you’re killing that flavor profile of aging unless it’s something you plan to enhance,” she said.
Blanco (or silver) tequila is generally preferred for its crisp, agave-forward taste. Save that reposado for a riff on an old fashioned, or simply for sipping on the rocks.
And make sure to opt for fresh-squeezed lime juice rather than artificial mixers or the bottled stuff that’s been sitting in your fridge door for who knows how long. Bottled juices lose intensity over time and typically include additives and preservatives that can alter the taste of the margarita.
The bright acidity of fresh lime juice cuts through the sweetness of the orange liqueur and the tequila’s sweet bottom notes. Lime juice is crucial for providing balance to the margarita. It’s as important as the orange liqueur, evidenced by the recipe’s equal proportions for both ingredients.
“If you’re not using a good lime juice, you can get a really bad taste in your mouth. I think sour mixes have really given margaritas a bad rap because it’s so readily available,” said Thurnher. “If you taste [bottled lime juice] side by side with [fresh lime juice], you’ll understand that flavor is important.”
But if you don’t have fresh limes to squeeze, or you’re batching large quantities of margaritas, Thurnher recommends Natalie’s Juice Company’s pure lime juice as an alternative. They use this pre-made juice to batch the popular house margaritas at El Ponce.
Salt or no salt?
Some say salt on the rim of the glass dials up the bright citrus notes of a margarita while toning down its sweetness. Just make sure to use a coarse salt like kosher salt.
Thurnher also suggests rimming only half the glass to prevent too much salt from falling into the cocktail. Salt is a flavor enhancer and not a necessary ingredient.
For locally produced salts, consider Atlanta-based Beautiful Briny Sea. Thurnher likes experimenting with the company’s salts and sugars as cocktail rims.
If you’re looking for a zesty kick of spice, rim the glass with Tajin. At El Ponce, they offer a house-made chamoy as a cocktail adhesive option.
For a mellower, mesquite rim, try smoked salt, an especially good choice for a mezcal margarita.
Long live the queen
El Ponce features several variations on the margarita, from on the rocks, frozen, and versions zhuzhed with house-made syrups to Texas-style and margaritas made with mezcal.
But the most popular margarita by far at El Ponce is the skinny. And before you start hating on the skinny margarita, let’s introduce you to the Tommy, which is the version of the skinny you’ll find at El Ponce.
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 swapped out for 100 percent agave nectar, resulting in a less sweet (and yes, less caloric), much cleaner, additive- and refined sugar-free margarita.
This version lets the tequila do all the talking in the margarita, with the agave nectar providing subtle sweetness that also amps up the vegetal notes in tequila, an agave-based spirit.
Recipe for the EL Ponce skinny margarita
Ice-cold margarita fact
Did you know the first frozen margarita machine is now in the Smithsonian?
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History acquired the machine from its inventor, Mariano Martinez, in 1971.
Martinez was having trouble keeping up with demand for frozen margaritas at his Dallas restaurant, mixing the drink in batches with a blender. One day, he walked into a 7-Eleven and spied the Slurpee machine doling out frozen drinks with the pull of a lever.
There was only one problem: alcohol doesn’t freeze. The Slurpee machine wouldn’t work.
Instead, Martinez came up with the idea to modify a soft-serve ice cream machine, inventing the world’s first frozen margarita machine.
All these centuries later, Aesop had it right. Necessity is the mother of invention. Long live the margarita.