This is the scene, year round, no matter the weather: The backyard of a bar, or maybe a deck out front facing the street, lined with picnic tables. Maybe there’s a band, maybe there’s a jukebox. Maybe there’s a food truck with a line snaking through the crowd. There are definitely tons of people talking, laughing, yelling, singing, arguing. The tables are crowded with beer bottles, and servers weave their way through the crowd carrying towers of empty pint glasses. Friends offer to buy each other rounds: pint of Lone Star, pint of Pearl Snap, two Live Oak hefes, a whiskey diet, and one of those spicy margarita things, right?
For better or for worse, Austin is a bar town. But hey, you don’t get to be the Live Music Capital of the World without slinging a few shots. Thankfully, the Austin cocktail scene has grown up a bit since Guy Clark sang about drinking those cheaper-than-dirt Mad Dog Margaritas at the Texas Chili Parlor.
While you can still get a good deal on pitchers of Lone Star around town, they’re served alongside pitchers of craft beer. Many bars now cater to a more discerning clientele, serving craft cocktails, Texas wines, and beers from Austin’s robust local brewing scene. That doesn’t mean every bar has gone highbrow—you can still get those giant, electric-colored flavored margaritas served in pint glasses. But now, sometimes, you can get them made with 100% agave tequila.
Of course, it’s not only about the booze. There are great nonalcoholic drinks in Austin too, from aguas frescas to great fresh juices and smoothies. Like most things in life, it’s all about balance.
And the occasional top-shelf margarita.
Mexican Martinis are arguably the only cocktail Austin can truly call its own, and variations on Mexican Martinis are served in Tex-Mex restaurants all over town. In most cases, restaurants guard their recipes closer than state secrets, but luckily for you, I’ve done my time as a Tex-Mex waitress.
In my experience, a Mexican Martini is just a double margarita with olive brine and vermouth, served in a martini glass with a toothpick full of olives. Some places add a bit of orange juice, but I think it makes the drink look muddy. Your call.
Makes 2 cocktails, or serves 1 person twice.
3 ounces (90 ml) 100% agave tequila
2 ounces (60 ml) fresh lime juice
1½ ounces (45 ml) orange liqueur of your choice
½ ounce (15 ml) olive brine
½ ounce (15 ml) dry vermouth
⅓ ounce (10 ml) fresh orange juice (optional)
Shake all the ingredients with ice. Serve the cocktail in the shaker, with a salt-rimmed martini glass on the side, garnished with a toothpick full of olives. Let guests do the pouring themselves.
Frozen margaritas have a reputation for being kind of, well, lame, thanks to their sweetness. A purist would most likely order a margarita on the rocks. But a well-made frozen margarita is not only a thing of beauty, it’s a necessary component of surviving those 100-degree days we get down here. And if you’re going to be snobby about that, fine. More frozen margaritas for me.
Makes 1 pitcher of margaritas, serves 4.
¾ cup (180 ml) 100% agave tequila
½ cup (120 ml) orange liqueur
½ cup (120 ml) fresh lime juice
¼ cup (60 ml) simple syrup (see Note, this page)
Ice
Salt and lime wedges for serving
Pour the tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice into a blender over about 3 cups (720 ml) ice. Blend until smooth. Serve in salt-rimmed glasses with a wedge of lime.
Rocks or frozen? Salt or no? These are the basic questions you’ll get when you order a margarita at a restaurant. But the options don’t stop there. Here’s a guide to all the glorious and varied ways one might order a margarita. You won’t see all of these options on every menu, but it sure would be fun if you did.
Beergarita Sometimes called a Solarita or a Coronarita, this is a frozen margarita with a miniature bottle of beer upended into it. As you drink it, the beer mixes with the margarita.
Dot Ordered with a frozen margarita, a dot is a small amount of flavored margarita added to the top of your drink. Good for mixing flavors (strawberry and lime is classic), or for when you don’t really want to commit.
En Fuego At Matt’s El Rancho, they’ll muddle your margarita with sliced jalapeños when you order it “en fuego.” (I highly recommend this.)
Flavored Flavors you might see include strawberry, sangria, prickly pear, mango, peach, tamarind, hibiscus, raspberry, cherry, coconut, grapefruit, watermelon, and avocado. Avocado margaritas are a specialty at Curra’s, but I’ve seen them pop up elsewhere recently. And word to the wise: if you order the blue one, you’ve gone too far.
Floater A shot of something poured over the top of your margarita, so it floats on the surface. Often Grand Marnier or Cointreau or other orange liqueurs, or even a spicy liqueur like Ancho Reyes. (This is often a server’s upsell on a top-shelf margarita.)
Frozen Blended with ice. Classic.
House This is a nicer way of describing a margarita made with well liquor. Almost every Tex-Mex place will serve you a house margarita, even if it’s not on the menu. Just ask.
Rim Seasoning on the rim of the glass. Typically coated with lime juice and then salted, but sometimes rims feature sugar or salt flavored with spices like chile or cinnamon, or citrus zest.
Rocks Served over ice. Also classic.
Swirl A frozen margarita with a swirl of a second flavor. Halfway between a regular flavored margarita and a dot margarita.
Up Shaken with ice, then strained and served without ice.
As top shelf as it gets. Find a good silver tequila you like, and have ingredients for these on hand at all times.
Makes 4 cocktails.
5 lime wedges
Coarse salt
1 cup (240 ml) silver tequila
½ cup (120 ml) Cointreau
½ cup (120 ml) fresh lime juice
Rub the rims of four glasses with a lime wedge. Pour salt into a saucer or shallow dish, then dip each glass into the salt. Set aside.
Shake the tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice with ice until thoroughly chilled, about 30 seconds, then strain into the glasses over fresh ice and garnish with the remaining lime wedges.
If it’s divey Tex-Mex, I get a strawberry frozen. The strawberry flavor (sometimes made from blended frozen strawberries) will cover the taste of the premade margarita mix. If it’s middling Tex-Mex, I order a house margarita, rocks or frozen depending on my mood. If it’s a nice place, I order a middle-shelf (not top, not well, but a nice tequila) rocks margarita with a floater of Ancho Reyes. Oh, and salt. Always with salt.
Austin native Nicole Cruz created this cocktail for Contigo, inspired by the “Mexican lollipops, much-coveted at my elementary school” comprised of watermelon candy under a layer of chile. While this cocktail doesn’t actually contain watermelon, Cruz explains, “Aperol and gin are natural allies, as are gin and cucumber. Put the three together and they are greater than the sum of their parts. Oddly enough, the combo tastes like watermelon; hence the name: “Cucurbit is a botanical family that counts both watermelon and cucumber among its ranks.”
Makes 1 cocktail.
Chile salt, such as Tajín
1 lime wedge
6 slices cucumber
1½ ounces (45 ml) gin
¾ ounce (23 ml) Aperol
½ ounce (15 ml) fresh lime juice
¼ ounce (7.5 ml) simple syrup (see Note)
Pour some chile salt into a shallow dish. Wet the rim of a rocks glass with the lime wedge, then dip it into the dish to coat the rim.
Put 3 of the cucumber slices in a shaker and use a muddler to bash them up a bit. Add the gin, Aperol, lime juice, simple syrup, and a large handful of ice, and shake. Strain into the chile salt–rimmed glasses over fresh ice. Garnish with additional cucumber slices dipped in chile salt.
Note: Simple syrup is a common cocktail ingredient that’s super easy to make. Simply heat equal parts sugar and water together in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved, then allow to cool before using.
Horchata is one of the more common flavors of aguas frescas, the famous Mexican flavored water drinks. Contrary to popular opinion, horchatas are often made without dairy, rendering them vegan. Tacodeli makes theirs from scratch using rice, almonds, cinnamon, vanilla, and evaporated cane juice for a beverage that one young taste tester dubbed “that new drink I love.” Try it, you will probably love it too.
Makes 1 pitcher of horchata, serves 4–6.
¾ cup (135 g) uncooked basmati or jasmine rice
1½ cups (160 g) slivered blanched almonds
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla paste (not extract)
¾ cup (180 ml) evaporated cane juice (or sugar)
Put the rice, almonds, and cinnamon in a pitcher and cover with 6 cups (1.4 L) water. Give it a stir and let soak, covered, at room temperature overnight.
The next day, pour the contents of the pitcher into a blender and add the vanilla paste and evaporated cane juice. Blend thoroughly. Strain the mixture through a cheesecloth-lined mesh strainer. There will be a lot of leftover sediment; you might want to periodically squeeze the excess liquid out of it and dispose of the solids. Do not skip this step, though, or your horchata will be gritty.
Serve over ice.
Makes 1 cocktail.
1 ounce (30 ml) vodka
1 ounce (30 ml) coffee-flavored liqueur
1 ounce (30 ml) heavy cream
Cola
Shake the vodka, coffee liqueur, and cream with ice. Strain into a tall tulip-shaped glass over fresh ice. Top with cola and serve, preferably with a straw.
This drink is shockingly, electrically, wonderfully magenta. Blend fresh peeled prickly pears for this if you can find them, but if not you can buy the puree online.
Makes 1 cocktail.
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon chile powder
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
1 lime wedge
1¼ ounces (38 ml) blanco tequila
¾ ounce (23 ml) lemon liqueur
1 ounce (30 ml) simple syrup (see Note this page)
1 ounce (30 ml) fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon prickly pear juice or puree
3 jalapeño slices, with their seeds
Mix the salt, chile powder, and lime zest in a shallow bowl or plate. Use a wedge of lime to moisten the rim of a glass and dip the rim into the salt mixture. Set aside.
Shake all the remaining ingredients with ice. Strain into the chile-rimmed glass over fresh ice.
Whisler’s is a craft cocktail bar on East Sixth Street with a tiny mezcalería upstairs. This cocktail combines a craft cocktail with mezcal to make a drink that’s at once unique and familiar.
Makes 1 cocktail.
2 ounces (60 ml) El Silencio mezcal
½ ounce (15 ml) simple syrup (see Note this page) made with Demerara sugar
4 dashes Angostura bitters
1 (2-inch/5-cm) strip of orange peel
1 Luxardo maraschino cherry
Stir the mezcal, simple syrup, and bitters in a cocktail mixer with ice. Stir until cold, about 40 revolutions. Strain into an old fashioned glass over one large fresh ice cube. Rub the orange peel around the rim of the glass, then add to the drink. Add the cherry and serve.
Local Texas grapefruits are bright, juicy, and taste amazing. This is a great, simple cocktail from Odd Duck that showcases them.
Makes 1 cocktail.
1½ ounces (45 ml) grapefruit vodka (recipe follows)
¾ ounce (23 ml) ginger liqueur
½ ounce (15 ml) simple syrup (see Note this page)
½ ounce (15 ml) fresh grapefruit juice
Grapefruit peel
Shake the vodka, ginger liqueur, simple syrup, and grapefruit juice with ice. Strain into an old fashioned glass over fresh ice and garnish with the grapefruit peel.
Grapefruit Vodka
Makes 1 liter.
2 large or 3 small red-fleshed grapefruit, ideally from Texas
½ cup (100 g) sugar
4½ cups (1 liter) vodka
2 big sprigs fresh mint
1 tablespoon pink peppercorns
Peel the grapefruit, removing as much of the bitter white pith as possible. Separate the sections and put the flesh into a gallonsize (3.8-L-size) resealable plastic bag along with the sugar. Mix together and let it sit for 30 minutes or so.
Set the bag in a large bowl (in case it leaks). To the bag add the vodka, mint, and peppercorns. Let it sit at room temperature overnight. Strain the infused vodka through cheesecloth or a coffee filter before serving. The infused vodka can be stored at room temperature in a sealed jar or bottle indefinitely.
In Austin, JuiceLand is the place to get juices and smoothies. What started on Barton Springs Road has spread across the city, with locations in Houston, Dallas, and even Brooklyn now. The good people at JuiceLand recommend playing around with the amount of banana to get the right consistency, but however you make it, this smoothie should be nice and thick.
Makes 1 smoothie.
1¼ cups (300 ml) almond milk
1 banana, frozen
⅓ cup (50 g) spinach leaves
2 teaspoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon hemp protein powder
Put all the ingredients in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth.
