Classic Blood Orange Margarita
This classic blood orange margarita recipe is refreshing and perfect for the time of year that blood oranges are in season. Originally published in 2010. It’s an oldie but goodie. 
Blood Orange Season!
This is why we love late Winter/early Spring in southern California—> Blood Oranges! It’s blood orange recipe season and our trees dropping their fruit. This is our signal that it’s time to eat or drink those precious blood oranges. If not, we’ll lose the precious stash to the squirrels. Oh, those darn squirrels love our citrus and we’ll be damned if they get a hold of all those blood oranges before we do. It’s time to drink!
We’ve succomb to the fact that our garden will never have enough fruit trees. Three years ago when we finished much of the main plantings, we thought we were finished with any more new additions of trees. But every time we visit a nursery, we’re overwhelmed with new gardening ideas. Now, we never seem to be able to leave the nursery empty handed. The truck always seems to have a new garden addition waiting in the back of the bed. It’s always so exciting to bring home a new fruit tree. It’s like bringing home a new puppy!
Blood Orange Margarita
A few weeks ago, we decided that having one blood orange tree wasn’t enough. We love our blood oranges and between giving them out to family and friends and our cooking, hardly is left by March. So, we talked ourselves into growing a second blood orange tree. It didn’t take too much convincing to realize that it was a great decision. Now, we have two blood orange trees. One for our friends, family & recipes. And the other solely for purposes of cocktails! The timing is perfect because we’ve been indulging in many blood orange margaritas lately, as well as our classic blood orange sidecar. It’s definitely the season to celebrate these gorgeous blood oranges.
Welcome home, to our new little blood orange tree! It’s still really small and will take a few years to finally catch up to the massive fruiting that our existing tree has. But we’re very patient gardeners. Until then, our current blood orange tree will be plentiful for the next few weeks.
More Citrus Recipes:
- Cocktail Recipes here.
- More Blood Orange Recipes
- Luscious Blood Orange Bars
- Lime Margarita with Bitters
- Blood orange gin and tonic
- White lady classic cocktail
Blood Orange Margarita Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 ounces (90 ml) fresh Blood Orange Juice
- 2 ounces (60 ml) Tequila
- 3/4 ounce (22 ml) fresh Lime Juice
- 1 ounce (30 ml) Simple Syrup or Agave Nectar
- flaky salt (optional) for rimming glass
Instructions
- For a Salted Rim - Rub the rim of an old fashioned glass (or whatever similar vessel you prefer to drink out of) with an edge of a blood orange slice. Swirl the rim through a small pile of flaky to salt the rim.
- Combine all ingredients into an ice filled cocktail shaker (blood orange juice, tequila, lime juice, and simple syrup) and shake for 15 seconds.
- Put a few cubes of ice in the salted glass. Strain the cocktail into the glass and enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition Information per Serving
<pCocktails & 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.
It’s been getting warmer and I’ve been thinking about this margarita recipe for the longest time. I’m so excited to be able to make this recipe again.
Here is my spin on a blood orange – cucumber Margarita!! My mother in law recently came to visit from Mexio and brought us some tequila. She also was excited to share her newly discovered Cucumber Margarita. Since we are luck enough to have several citrus trees on our property here is what I did. 🙂
2 Jigger Tequila
6 Jiggers Margarita Mix
1 whole cucumber peeled and chopped – put these right in the blender
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 blood orange
2 shakes of salt
ice cube
I used a lemon or blood orange on the rim of a glass and dipped it in kosher salt.
Blend on high and you will have the best refreshing Margarita ever!!! 🙂
Hi there, I love this but wanting to consider this for my wedding ‘signature cocktail,’ and I don’t know if using fresh blood oranges is possible with 200+ guests. Do you have any recommendations on this? Trader Joe’s has a fantastic blood orange soda that I love… do you think that would be a good replacement for the fresh juice, or is that a bad idea? Any bottled blood orange juice you would recommend? Looking forward to your thoughts and advice! 🙂
Hi Melanie,
We can’t think of any bottled juice that we’ve had for blood orange juice. Especially not any that aren’t more than a small amount for not too cheap of a price. We know of the blood orange soda you mentioned at trader joes. It wouldn’t be a straight substitution, but you might play with making blood orange margarita spritzers with them. You could have a tequila base with maybe a bit of lime juice and if it needs any simple syrup (you’d have to taste test to figure out your preference). And then when ready to serve at your wedding, have the bartenders or staff top the tequila base with the blood orange soda. Worth a shot.
BTW-for this recipe it is better to replace the triple sec with simple syrup and a few dashes of orange bitters. We need to recipe test to get the exact amount and update this recipe. Totally forgot it was written before we discovered bitters and simple syrup as a triple sec upgrade. Thanks for commenting and have an amazing wedding!
You made the news! Thanksgiving Cocktails: Drink & Be Merry with 17 Festive Drinks for the Holidays that Even Scrooge Would Love!
http://www.examiner.com/article/thanksgiving-cocktails-drink-be-merry-with-17-festive-drinks-for-the-holidays
In just a little over 24 hours I will be on a plane and that much closer to one of these! http://t.co/xiZ1oSgq #HawaiianVacation
Looks fantastic and tasty! Can I use blood orange soda in place of the blood orange juice? Can’t find blood oranges here in the city.
Sarah
A blood orange soda would change it quite a bit, but you could use the soda and experiment with making a blood orange margarita spritzer. Still tasty.
I just bought my first blood orange yesterday. I’ve seen lots of receipes and pretty pictures with things made with them. Well, I’m excited! I only bought 2 because they are sooo expensive. But I came home and just wondered what I would do with them – Of course a cocktail came to mind and was my first choice. In goggling for ideas, I came across your blog. I’m so jealous that you have your own tree : ) It’s Friday and time for my own personal Happy Hour (See blog semplo2lost.wordpress.com) but I’m sure that my first blood orange experience will be on my blog in a few weeks.
Enjoy your post . . .Pat
SALT! It’s the most under-played-with element of the margarita, but incredibly worthwhile. Here’s what you do: (1) Microplane blood orange zest
(2) Get three different salts: flake, black, and himalayan (or, said differently, flake-crystal salt, large-crystal salt, and small-crystal salt)
(3) Mix those components together to salt the rim
The other big thing is what you’re using to wet the rim. A thick sugar-syrup made with blood orange zest will give you richness, body and depth (a peeler works fine to get the zest without getting pith). An acidic reduction made from the juice of slightly under-ripe oranges will give you zing. Just some thoughts 🙂 Beautiful pictures and man, oh, man, I’m jealous of your climate!
OMG! Just finished one of these and LOVE! Thank you for this marvelous recipe and the perfect end to Cinco de Mayo!
I reminded of the blood oranges that you guys sent us way back when that we made blood orange margaritas with! Happy (drunken) days!
I love this spin on the margarita! Makes me want one even though it’s the middle of the day and I’m at work!
Those oranges look marvelous, really juicy- the last time I bought organic blood oranges they were dry (but I don’t live in CA :-(.. Last year I made blood orange-whiskey marmalade, and yes it had the same fabulous colour as your drink!!!
Yummy! I wouldn’t mind a drink right about NOW! 😉
I love margaritas but I’ve never had a blood orange one before, can’t wait to try it out!
OH MY is right! Yowzah. I may have to arrange a get together in order to have an excuse to make these, instead of the other way around! Wow. Brilliant!