Margarita Recipe and The Magic Formula – Bitters
This is the best margarita recipe to share with friends at a party. The addition of bitters gives this classic margarita cocktail a wonderful layer of flavor. 
Best Margarita Cocktail
Call me suckered, hoodwinked, or duped. I believe in magic potions. A man hawking small bottles of potion, proclaiming outlandish results. Out of curiosity, I skeptically try the potion. A few shakes in a cocktail drink. A cocktail I am very familiar with, but with a mere few dashes of this elixir it became something new. Better. Incredibly delicious. It really is the best margarita cocktail you’ll make.
Cocktail Bitters have been known to many much more savvy than I, but for me it is an exciting new world. A mystical potion which marries the ingredients of a cocktail together. Just about anytime I find a bar making exceptional cocktails drinks, it is almost a guarantee that they have a beautiful stock of bitters frequently reached for behind the bar. Often times, there are bitters they are making themselves amongst the bottles. This is the start to the best margarita recipe.
My dawdling discovery of bitters magic powers recently came to fruition in the pages of a book. Not for the lack of signs trying to tell me the same thing. A reader commented about my use of triple sec in a margarita recipe, disapproving of it’s unctuous sweetness and mentioned it would be much better with some simple syrup and bitters instead. Diane comes home from photographing Bazaar, a hot restaurant in LA known for their exceptional cocktails recipes (among other things), and she is all aflutter talking about their house made bitters.
Bitters for Margarita Cocktails
Time after time, bitters have been under my nose, and yet I’ve passed right over their magic. We’ve even had several bottles of bitters in amongst our golden elixirs of alcohol, but they were almost never used. But all of these subtle and not so subtle hints have taking me along my current path. Ripening me for the moment I laid hands on the book Bitters by Brad Thomas Parsons.
Diane and I were meeting with the publishers of Ten Speed Press to discuss a project we were working on with them, and I spied the Bitters book on their shelf. They must have seen the twinkle in my eye, because the lovely ladies at Ten Speed handed us the book to take home as we concluded our meeting.
As much as I love cocktails, it is rare I get excited about a new book. I have my trusted resource on classic cocktails. Occasionally we’ll come across a beautiful book put out by an upstanding bar, and the drinks will be delicious and creative, yet I rarely make anything out of them. But this book has me excited. Beyond being a great read and resource, it is changing how I make cocktails.
We are in the process of making our own bitters, with the help of Parsons’ book, but there are already a great handful of exceptional bitters on the market. The process of bitters is month long, so until ours are ready, we’ve had fun playing with our purchased potions. Stomach a little uneasy? Some soda water a a few dashes of bitters may be the trick to settling your tummy.
Bitters for a cocktail is like the pepper and salt to a dish. Or the fish sauce to Vietnamese cuisine. By themselves it is a bit overpowering, but when added with the other ingredients they season it perfectly. Make two classic cocktails, one with bitters and one without and see which you like better. I can almost guarantee it will be the one with the bitters. For us, any cocktail I usually used triple sec in, I’ve now replaced that with a bit of simple syrup and a few dashes of orange bitters. Sidecars have never been so good.
Like most everything good in cocktails recipes there is always folklore and mystery involved and bitters are no exception. It is part of the beauty. One legend which I’ve yet to try but is fun to share, is the no-fail cure to hiccups. Soak a sugar coated lemon wedge with Angostura bitters and take a bite. Hiccups will be gone.
Since our limes are going ape nuts right now, here’s the best margarita cocktail recipe sans the triple sec and with bitters and simple syrup balancing the lime and tequila.
-Todd
Check out our Cocktail Recipes Here and our Complete Whiskey Guide.
Margarita Recipe w/ fresh Lime & Bitters
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 ounces (45 ml) Tequila we prefer Resposada or Anejo for this cocktail
- 1 1/2 ounces (45 ml) fresh Lime Juice
- 1 ounce (30 ml) Simple Syrup , or to taste
- 3 dashes Orange Bitters
- flaky salt for the rim (optional)
Instructions
- For a Salted Rim: Rub the rim of an old fashioned glass (or whatever glass you prefer) with an edge of a lime slice. Swirl the rim through a small pile of flaky salt to salt the rim. Add ice into the glass.
- Combine tequila, lime juice, simple syrup, and bitters in an ice filled shaker.
- Shake vigorously for 15 seconds, then strain into the prepared glass. Serve or drink immediately and with leisure.
Notes
Nutrition Information per Serving
Cocktails & Beyond – Here’s some of our favorite finds:
We tend to be a bit obsessive over our cocktail tools. Here’s some of our favorites we’ve collected and put to use over the years:
OXO Citrus Squeezer – What is the difference between an ok cocktail & a great one? Most of the time, fresh citrus juice. If you don’t have one, get yourself a squeezer.
Japanese Style Ice Pick – My favorite cocktail tool. With swag and great function, it’s perfect for cocktail geeks like us.
Cocktail Kingdom Leopold Jigger – We have a dozen jiggers, but this one is my favorite. Love the copper-plating, quickly gives a lived in patina. Love the lines on the inside marking off different measurements.
Solid recipe, agave nectar is usually the preference but simple syrup is good with bitters.
Next time give this a try and see how you like it
2oz añejo (I infuse with vanilla, cloves, star anise, smoked orange zest)
1oz Contreau
1oz fresh lime (1 lime)
2 dashes angostura bitters
(If this isn’t sweet enough for your taste but you like the flavor, add .5oz liquor 43)
I’m also rediscovering bitters, but there’s no “restoring” the margarita to pre-Triple Sec status, because the way I heered it, the original Marg used Cointreau anyway! So more power to innovation, not restoration!
Can I ask, what is your “trusted resource on classic cocktails”? I know I’m late to the party here but always looking for a tried and true recipe book.
Hi Amy,
I like the Ultimate Bar Book. But there are a lot of great other cocktail books out there too. Usually I’ll look for ones which are using bitters, fresh juices, never resort to mixes. That sort of thing.
T
While I’ve enjoyed several margaritas in my lifetime, I am a virgin to cocktail creation. I got pleasantly schooled at a recent visit to our local liquor store. Two ladies saw my ingredients and gushed with margarita recommendations, lol. I didn’t really even know which tequila to try. I know. It’s shameful to admit ; ) I’m curious what people’s faves are. One woman recommended Hornitos so alas, that’s what I tried. I gotta say, d’lish! It’s very refreshing on a hot day such as this one. Thanks for the recipe. Cheers!
Hi Melissa,
There are so many choices for tequila, and you can’t go wrong with hardly any of them. All the more reason to keep trying more and more margaritas and other delicious cocktails to find the one that is your favorite. Generally we’ll stick with and anejo (aged) or sometimes a reposed (rested – aged less) tequila, but that isn’t a set in stone rule. Hornitos is nice, same with Suaza. If we find it at a good price point we’ll grab Cazadores, Herradura, or El Jimador. Just thinking about this makes us want to go out and try a few more tequilas. We try to keep the price point below $25 for a cocktail tequila, otherwise it seems like a waste. Save the good stuff for sipping.
Shake it like you mean it!
One of the few rules of cocktails – make it COLD and use fresh juices. Welcome to the land of shaker faces! -Search that on Vimeo 😉
T & D
I simply love the purity of this margarita – best recipe out there for sure!
That’s awesome. Thanks so much!
T
Yum! I could use a margarita right now….