SPICY MARGARITA
This week I’m bringing the heat with this spicy margarita. A few weeks back, I did a poll on my Instagram to see if you guys wanted to see a spicy or a sweet margarita recipe for Cinco de Mayo. The sweet votes ultimately won out which led to the Blood Orange Hibiscus Margarita recipe but as you can see below, it was a narrow margin of victory!
After giving the winner it’s respect, I’m back to give the spicy people what they want. This recipe was more of a challenge for me because while I love tequila and margaritas, I just don’t like spicy ones. After a lot of research and thinking, I got my supplies and brought in my spicy loving secret weapon - my husband.
In the interest of transparency, our first attempt was an epic fail. We spent over an hour filming and prepping and simple-syrup-making only to take the first sip of the finished cocktail and realize there was zero spice. I wanted to share some of that process though because it was a learning experience and not all recipes go perfectly the first time around especially when you’re making them up as they go along. That being said, I ended up drinking the margs made this way because they weren’t spicy and that’s what I happen to like!
I knew I wanted to make a ginger and jalapeño simple syrup but worried leaving in the seeds and/or ribs of the jalapeño would be too spicy so my initial syrup had more ginger and 2 seeded/de-ribbed jalapeños. This meant that aside from a slight warm bite from the ginger, this wasn’t giving the spice I was going for and we added more of this syrup to the cocktail than we needed which made it even sweeter.
I had been researching different recipes and combining bits and pieces of a lot of them and had a great idea to use Mike’s Hot Honey in the recipe. Did I remember this when it came time to make the first recipe? I sure didn’t. My saving grace was that another mistake we made on the first attempt was slicing the jalapeño that went into the cocktail with the seeds way too thin (again, not enough heat) and we had to go back to the store for more. We returned home with more jalapeños and secured the hot honey for attempt #2.
So here’s what we did different for the second attempt:
Did a full jalapeño (seeds & ribs too) and less ginger in the simple syrup
Used less of the simple syrup in the cocktail
Added hot honey into the mix
Muddled thicker (and more slices) of fresh jalapeño
Another thing we tried on the second attempt that didn’t work for us was infusing the tequila. We sliced a whole jalapeño with seeds and ribs and added it to 6 ounces of tequila (enough for two cocktails). I thought with the small amount of tequila, one jalapeño would be more than enough but after 3 days the tequila smelled spicy but just tasted like a warmer version of tequila than it was originally. To me, definitely not worth the time.
After trying a few different ratios of the ingredients and ways to mix them, there are two keys for this cocktail.
The first is that you have to use a minimal amount of the simple syrup and the honey because while they both bring some heat, they also have sweetness that can take away from other sources of heat. If you’re asking yourself, do I need both then? Can’t I just use one or the other? I asked myself that too, mostly was it worth making the simple syrup or could I just use the honey. I tried making them with just the syrup and just the honey and ultimately determined that it does need both. The ginger has such a unique spice to it that really makes a difference and the honey has a subtle heat that enhances all the other flavors in the cocktail.
The second key is to use a Hawthorne strainer rather than using a the top of a cocktail shaker or other strainer to pour the drink into your glass. While the margarita we tried in the cocktail shaker was more aerated and chilled, a majority of the seeds from the muddled jalapeño couldn’t fit through the holes in the top it came with and the margarita was significantly less spicy. It was an easy fix, whether we made it in a glass jar or the shaker, we just strained it using this.
You can see a step by step video on the recipe on my Instagram page or in the Tik Tok video below. Save or screenshot the recipe card at the bottom of the page to try this cocktail out this summer!
