Tommys Margarita
Tequila, lime and agave nectar — no orange liqueur. The San Francisco Margarita that quietly became the world's bar standard because it lets the tequila speak.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
If you want salt, run a lime wedge round half the rim of a rocks glass and dip it in kosher salt. Fill the glass with ice.
Add the tequila, lime juice and agave syrup to a shaker.
Fill the shaker with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Strain over the fresh ice and garnish with a lime wheel.
A thoughtful finish
- Dilute your agave nectar. Straight from the bottle it is thick and sweeter than simple syrup by volume; a one-to-one mix with warm water pours cleanly and measures like syrup.
- Tommy's itself uses a reposado, which is unusual for a Margarita and adds a soft oak note. A good blanco is brighter; both are right.
- The ratio is the whole recipe: 2 : 1 : ½. Memorise it and you can make this anywhere with three ingredients and a lime.
Common mistakes
- Reaching for the triple sec by habit. The point of the drink is its absence.
- Using undiluted agave nectar at a syrup measure. The drink comes out cloying.
- Serving it up in a coupe. It was born in a rocks glass over ice, and the dilution is part of the balance.
A few good questions.
How is a Tommy's Margarita different from a Margarita?
It swaps the orange liqueur for agave syrup. The result is drier, more agave-forward and slightly less strong, and it never tastes of cheap triple sec.
Blanco or reposado?
Either. Tommy's uses reposado and the drink is slightly rounder; a blanco is sharper and more typical of what bars serve under the name.
Can I use honey or simple syrup instead of agave?
You can, but then it is a tequila sour. Agave syrup is what makes it a Tommy's, because it shares the spirit's own flavour.
Salt or no salt?
Bermejo serves it without unless asked. A half rim of kosher salt is traditional; a full rim of table salt is not.
Variations
- Margarita — The original, with orange liqueur.
- Spicy Margarita — Muddled jalapeño and a chilli-salt rim.
- Mezcal Margarita — Mezcal for the tequila.
- Paloma — Tequila, lime and grapefruit soda.
Where it comes from
c. 1990 · San Francisco · Julio Bermejo · Tommy's Mexican Restaurant
Julio Bermejo took over the bar at his family’s restaurant, Tommy’s, in the Richmond district of San Francisco in the late 1980s and set about selling 100% agave tequila at a time when most of America drank mixto. His Margarita dropped the triple sec — which he felt masked the agave — and replaced it with agave nectar, a sweetener that tastes of the same plant as the spirit. The drink spread through the bartending community in the 1990s and 2000s, and by the 2010s it was the house Margarita in a large share of the world’s good cocktail bars. Bermejo’s restaurant still makes it the same way, by the thousand.
Sources
- Julio Bermejo, as told to Difford's Guide, 2010 (interview)
- Robert Simonson, A Proper Drink, 2016 (book)
- David Wondrich, Imbibe!, 2015 (book)
Strength. About 1.33 US standard drinks at an estimated 18.3% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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