Tequila Cocktail Recipes

Explore the different tequila cocktail recipes you can try with help from the Drinky Drink Project. From refined classics to inventive creations, these drinks are a joy to make and try. Contact me for details.

Ingredients:

• Tequila
• Blueberries
• Lime Juice
• Simple Syrup
• Orange Bitters

Continuing my weekend of berry cocktails – gotta use up all these berries!

Tequila continues to surprise me. I’ve had tequila with so many different fruits, and its fresh taste goes perfectly with each one. I’ve even had tequila with eggnog and in-cream drinks — it still works. I’ve tried tequila with ginger beer, with blue curaçao, and with rum — it still works. It’s the all-around easy-going spirit in the mixology world.

Back up — I think vodka is actually the more “easy-going” spirit as far as going with damn near everything. But that’s only because vodka tastes like nothing.

The Blueberry Margarita, AS ALWAYS, is lovely. The only thing I’d change (and did change) is the salt. I like salt on a margarita glass, but the blueberry flavor in this margarita is too delicate for it. I wiped it off the glass and, tada! I was able to taste the blueberries. As expected, the tequila was perfectly friendly with the blueberries, and it was delicious.

Oops! One other change from the recipe. The recipe calls for reposado or añejo tequila; I used silver. It really doesn’t matter.

Ingredients:

• Cognac
• Light Rum
• Triple Sec
• Lemon Juice

Another Prohibition-Era cocktail! I hope I never run out of these. Between the Sheets is a riff on a Sidecar with the addition of rum and the subtraction of the sugared rim. It was created in the early 1930s at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris by Harry himself. Harry’s New York Bar is another Drinky Drink destination I’d like to visit when the pandemic is over.

This is a zow-wow-pow cocktail. Lots of flavor, good flavor. The only thing I would change is the triple sec. I’m happy to report my taste buds are getting more sensitive to the differences in the array of orange liqueurs we have to choose from, and triple sec is my least favorite.

It could have something to do with the fact that my bottle is pretty inexpensive (are there expensive bottles of triple sec?), but I think Grand Marnier would be better, a brandy-based orange liqueur to go with the brandy in the drink. I’ll try that next, which might be in a few minutes. Depending on how much this one goes to my head.

I’m going to add this because I would have wanted someone to list out the orange liqueurs commonly found in bars a year ago. Back then, I was buying ingredients (like triple sec), and I had NO IDEA what the flavor was. In fact, I thought triple sec was something like Everclear…I was surprised to learn it is orange! And I learned by taking a direct swig from the bottle I got on curbside pickup! I was clueless but learning, swig by swig.

So, the commonly found orange liqueurs:

• Triple Sec
• Grand Marnier
• Curaçao
• Cointreau

There are others, but after nearly a year of mixing drinks and completing bartending and mixology schools, I’ve never needed any but these. Oh, there are also orange bitters, but they are used differently than the liqueurs above. Orange bitters are more of a little slap of orange, whereas the liqueurs are a full punch.

Ingredients:

• Light Rum
• Dark Rum
• Orange Curaçao
• Lime Juice
• Orgeat Syrup
• Simple Syrup

Traditional Garnishes

• Lime Shell
• Mint

Mai Tai is called “the stuff of tiki legends” on liquor.com, but it hasn’t always been a great drink. Over the years, bartenders have taken shortcuts (looking at you, 1980s) and substituted poor ingredients or straight-up changed it by adding pineapple juice, orange juice, passionfruit syrup, etc. I think most people now think of a Mai Tai as a very sweet cocktail that is a guaranteed hangover. Or diabetes. Or cavities.

It isn’t supposed to be like that! Just like Amaretto Sour, it is a great drink if you follow the original recipe and use good ingredients. Mai Tais are supposed to be boozy and crisp, and that is exactly how I’d describe it. It is delicious. I totally see why this is a tiki classic.

The traditional garnishes, as I’ve listed above, are a lime shell and a mint sprig. The lime shell is meant to look like an island in the South Pacific. But this is one of those that you can garnish to high heaven. Cut up all the fruit in the house, skewer it, and stick it in there. Delightful.