Margarita

A real margarita is too good and too easy to make to be ignored in favor of a mix full of sugar, or worse, high fructose corn syrup. Make it yourself and impress your friends!

It is really easy, I am telling you…

Obviously, this is alcohol, so it isn’t going to be extremely cheap, but you probably don’t want that, right? You can get a decent tequila for under $15, and that will be fine since you are using if for this and not for shots…or at least wait until later to do the shots. I am using Grand Marnier because I happened to have some, but you can totally use ordinary triple sec or whatever orange liqueur you have. Then you have some limes, which are really cheap if you are shopping in the right stores. I probably paid anywhere between 30 and 50 cents for the four juicy ones you see above. Then you have coarse salt, which you probably have in your kitchen anyway.

Juice the limes, or act frazzled and get someone else to do it. You want an ounce per drink and a single lime will give you somewhere around an ounce, depending on size and juiciness.

For each drink you want to make, pour 1½ ounce tequila, an ounce of lime juice, and ½ ounce of orange liqueur into a shaker filled with ice, I usually do two at a time, but you might be able to fit three in there.

Rub the rim of each glass with a lime wedge to make it a little sticky.

Pour some coarse salt on a small plate and turn the glass over into the salt, wiggling it around to get a nice rim on there. Add ice to the glass.

Shake shake shake, then pour into the glass of ice. Alternatively, you could have this straight up in a martini glass (but you probably want to shake it a bit longer). Cheers!