The clean margarita that ruined restaurant margaritas for me
Three clean ingredients, a spicy rim, and ten years of proof.
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EAT WELL
The story
A decade of these
Every summer we take a big family beach trip to our house in Isle of Palms, SC. I don’t really drink anymore, but I can’t pass these up while we’re there. Mostly because I don’t have to make them myself - years ago we officially deemed my brother-in-law the mixologist. Now he just makes big batches of these all week, and nobody argues. (He also makes a perfect (decaf for me) espresso martini – maybe I can get that recipe sometime too 🤔)
It started back when I was strictly paleo and collecting all of Danielle Walker’s cookbooks. I’d recently made tequila my liquor of choice, so I went looking for a margarita I could make at home. I found one of hers that looked easy, tried it, and it’s been our go-to for more than ten years now. Everyone I’ve served it to falls in love with it, mostly because it’s so simple and the ingredients are so clean but it tastes so fresh.
The first spicy rim was an accident. One of the first years we made these, we’d just been to HomeGoods stocking the beach house and I grabbed a jalapeno salt grinder, basically salt and dried jalapenos. I thought it would be perfect to use it on the rim. After a few rounds we got lazy and ground it right over the top of the drink instead. When at the beach we’re trying to keep things as simple as possible, right?!
The Tajín came not long after. I had a spicy margarita at a charity event with a Tajín rim, my husband and I loved it, but then never saw Tajín anywhere else (not true these days – I think most spicy margs out there come with a Tajín rim!) Later that year I was doing Christmas shopping on Amazon and a box of mini Tajín bottles popped up randomly. I thought they’d be a perfect Christmas stocking stuffer for him! Since the box was so big, we ended up taking a bunch to the beach, which turned out perfect because the humidity there turns a full bottle into a clumpy mess. The minis you use up in a day or two, and the rest stay sealed and ready for the next trip. We kept it stocked there for whenever we were visiting - it really does take the drink to another level.
Eventually the clean-ingredient part of my brain caught up. I knew Tajín probably had some caking agents or something in there that wasn’t up to my standard. But YOLO! It’s a few times a summer, so we drank it and didn’t overthink it. Recently I found the upgrade I wanted: Simply Organic makes a chili lime seasoning that’s basically an organic Tajín, so we’ve switched. To me it tastes the same! Or at least it feels the same, hits the same spots on your tongue, works the same in the drink. No mini bottles, unfortunately. But I use it enough now that I’m going organic from here out. In my most recent search, Redmond Real Salt has an organic one too – I may try that next.
The kids got in on it too
My kids weren’t drinking margaritas, obviously. But they’d tasted the Tajín and loved it too, and I kept catching them stealing the mini bottles and “drinking” them in secret. So we set out to find them a real use for it. The winner: slice up a watermelon, squeeze a wedge of lime over it, and sprinkle on some Tajín / chili lime seasoning. It sounds crazy, but the sweet-salty-spicy thing is honestly perfection, and now they ask for it every time we have a watermelon in the house.
The short hit
The best margarita
It seems too simple, but I swear it’s the best. Best part is it scales up to however big of a batch you need.
2 parts tequila
1 part lime juice
1 part honey syrup
Add all to a shaker with ice, shake shake shake, strain over a fresh glass of ice. Not a traditional marg ingredient, but add an optional splash of club soda (lime Spindrift is preferred) if you want to be sipping all day.
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The honey syrup sounds scary but is easy. It’s 50/50 honey to hot water, mixed until the honey dissolves. Make it ahead and keep it in a jar in the fridge, which is what we do, especially on a beach week when we’re making batch after batch. You ideally want it cold when you’re mixing the drink. Fresh-squeezed lime tastes best, but if you’re making it in bulk, or drink after drink, bottled organic lime juice that’s not from concentrate works too. Not as good as fresh, but after the first one, you can’t really tell at all.
The recipe credit belongs to Danielle Walker, and I’ll link it here.
To take it up a notch, you rim the glass with chili lime seasoning (Tajín or similar) by rubbing a little lime around the rim so it’s sticky, then pressing the glass into the spices. I recently found this that makes this easy! Or my lazy girl method, just shake some on top. 😂
(Mocktail side note: I wrote this post and then told my husband he had to have a margarita so I could take a photo for my Substack. We had a busy week and he just wasn’t feeling it, so yesterday I decided I’d just make one (at 9am) and not drink it. Then I figured you couldn’t see the difference between tequila and water in the photo, so I used 2 parts Lime Spindrift instead of the tequila to get the shot. It was delicious!!! Especially with the chili lime rim. So we’ve now got a go-to mocktail version worth sipping on all summer. And yes, the photo is actually the mocktail. 😉)
Before you go
I’m always hunting for new ways to use the chili lime seasoning. Hit reply and tell me yours. I will absolutely try it!
Talk soon,
Kristen ❤️