If our most popular drinks from April are any indication, it’s a great time to drink a Margarita—whether it’s the platonic ideal of the classic or an extra-refreshing crushable take. It’s also a great time to travel, and in lieu of transport by land or sea or air, sometimes a cocktail can take you there. Want to take a trip to Caribbean-influenced New Orleans, or stop by old-school Madrid? Here are the recipes to do so.
Margarita Soda
The key to the Margarita Soda is simplicity. The ingenious highball mashup from Hellbender Nighttime Café in Ridgewood, Queens, starts with a base of a Tommy’s Margarita, topped with club soda, which opens up the earthy tequila notes and the sharp lime, offering balanced, layered complexity in an obsession-worthy package.
Read More →Tom Macy’s Old-Fashioned
Tom Macy, who took the top spot at our Old-Fashioned blind tastings in 2018 and 2024, builds his version on two ounces of Wild Turkey 101 rye, a teaspoon of 2:1 Demerara syrup and three dashes of his personalized bitters blend known as Dad’s Bitters—a mix of Angostura, Bitter Truth orange and Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas’ Own Decanter bitters—stirred and strained, then garnished with both lemon and orange twists.
Read More →Christine Wiseman’s Margarita
The winner of our 2024 Margarita blind tasting, Christine Wiseman’s recipe reads like a hybrid of a classic Margarita and a Tommy’s Margarita. There’s a half-ounce of orange liqueur, the default in classic iterations of the drink, plus a half-ounce of agave syrup, the sweetener of choice in the latter build. The result is a Margarita with zip, body and balance and a tequila that shines through beautifully.
Read More →Bywater
Chris Hannah created the Bywater at Arnaud’s in New Orleans in 2007. The drink is essentially a distant Southern cousin to the Brooklyn. To reflect the Bywater neighborhood’s Caribbean influence, Hannah swapped out the whiskey for rum. He then added falernum, a traditional Caribbean liqueur with top notes of allspice, lime and ginger. Instead of vermouth, he opted for Averna—“amaro has more body than vermouth,” Hannah notes. The amaro offered a distinct tang of orange peel, another staple of the South and a tip of the hat to the orange-heavy Amer Picon in the Brooklyn.
Read More →Yayo
Without the custom ingredients at Madrid’s Casa Camacho, it will be difficult to get the exact balance of flavors and aromas as the Yayo served at its bar of origin. But the drink is forgiving (owner Ambrosio Alvarez Delgado and his employees never measure the ingredients), and even outside of Spain, it’s possible to get close with a combination of dry gin, lemon, citrus soda and sweet vermouth.
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