The iconic Margarita looms uniquely large in our culture, as a classic in the hallowed realm of Manhattans and Old Fashioneds that’s also ubiquitous — served in airport bars and strip mall chain restaurants (Mexican-inspired and otherwise), sold by the mass-market bottle and, more recently, the upmarket can. This three-ingredient tequila cocktail represents Americans’ historic entry point to our influential southerly neighbors and a huge piece of our collective identity.
“The Margarita is an introduction of an entire culture to an American audience that we don’t really understand the impact of just because we’ve had Mexico in our lives for so long,” says Michael Neff, beverage director at Bar Loretta in San Antonio, Texas. “There was a time when the Margarita was exotic … and, as a cultural experience, embodied this place for a regular person who’d go to a Mexican restaurant because, ‘Oh my God, they have frozen Margaritas.’ It was one of the most popular of the aspirational cocktails.”
With such broad-spectrum accessibility, it was inevitable that throughout the Margarita’s nearly 90-year existence it would undergo a little — ahem — doctoring. But when is a riff cool and when is it a crime against a veritable icon? We asked Neff and three other celebrated bartenders to weigh in on eight Margarita variations — spanning frozen and clarified, Cadillac’d, sugar-rimmed, and topped with soda — and whether they constitute offenses against or welcomed riffs on this legendary cocktail. The answers, like the Margarita herself, contain multitudes.
1. Frozen
