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.
I am the head bartender at “the living room on main” in Dunedin,FL and I have had the Blood orange Marg on my specialty drink menu for awhile. I make mine top shelf and served up. It is a fantastic drink to serve!!
TJ- definitely fantastic. thanks for the idea of using top shelf, we shall try that as well!
cool! You got the agave syrup. It makes such a big difference in flavor, no? The agave gives it such a perfectly balanced combination of sweetness. Can’t wait to have the last bit of our T&D blood oranges this way!
Foodwoolf- thanks for the agave syrup suggestion!
Such gorgeous fruit! I am totally craving one of these right now, especially since we are moving into an apartment with a patio soon! (Patios are kind of rare in Tokyo, so we are really excited to start enjoying some cocktails out there come warmer weather) Thanks for the gorgeous recipe as always!
So yeah, of course the cocktail looks great. But what I REALLY want is your GARDEN! I told my husband recently that I have plans to add at least two fruit trees to our front yard, along with a raised bed or three. He thinks I’ve gone a little garden crazy… and he’s probably right. But nobody ever said I couldn’t plant a garden in my front yard. 🙂
Lucky you. I definitely need a blood orange margarita tree!!
I feel the same about a new tree. One of my dwarf magnolias has died and I am going to replace it with fruit, haven’t decided which one yet.
See you next Monday!
LL
Lori- yay! see ya on Monday, look forward to it.
I know what I am making this friday evening! Cheers….
Oh good! i came to the site SPECIFICALLY to look for this recipe. This is AWESOME!! I’ve been craving this for the past 3 days straight.
That’s pretty far out that you have your own tree.. I’d love a lemon tree, paying 400 yen for a lemon… eeek…
“Oh my” is right! How envious I am of your citrus trees. I have only tried blood oranges on occasion, but I can imagine they make a fantastic margarita.
So after making those blood orange caramels from http://www.mattbites.com we now have a cocktail. Love this. This is going to show up at my next cocktail party.
Hey folks,
I made these for dinner last night with my wife and brother and sister-in-law, and they were a HUGE hit. Thanks a bunch for the recipe!
We’re now plotting other citrus margs withe same idea. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Yogi
Yogi- yay! definitely try it with grapefruit!
Hello! Every picture you put on your blog is just gorgeous =)
And I wanted to say a big thank you for your video on using speedlights. A friend kindly gave me his old one for free a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been using it all wrong. I have a much better idea what to do now cos of your video and I’m excited for my next food post!
They are absolutely “Oh my”. I’m sure you wouldn’t trade this blood orange tree with one of our mango trees. And wow, the color is so vibrant.
After work I went to our local whole foods and bought blood oranges. I juiced mine but I did the extra step of straining my juice because it seemed a bit pulpy.
I dedicate this polite little buzz to the two of you.
Nicole- yay! thank you for the honor!
Would love to have a blood orange tree to keep my Meyer lemon and lime trees company, but have totally run out of planting space. Do you know if they can be successfully grown in large containers, or do they need more room to thrive?
Leah- we’ve seen them grow well in containers and do bear some fruit. As long as they get full sun, the fruit should set. But please consult your local nursery to make sure. Good luck!