Mezcal Margarita
A Mezcal Margarita is 60ml of joven espadín mezcal, 30ml of fresh lime juice and 15ml of agave syrup straight from the bottle, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass with half a salt rim and a lime wheel. About 2.4 UK units. It is a Tommy’s Margarita with mezcal in place of the tequila, at the measures Difford’s Guide gives for a Tommy’s: 60ml, 30ml of lime and 15ml of agave syrup. The IBA gives its Tommy’s 30ml of agave nectar; ours follows Difford’s, with the syrup straight from the bottle. There is no orange liqueur. That absence is why it works. Orange and smoke sit in the same part of the palate and fight; agave syrup sweetens an agave spirit without adding a flavour the smoke has to argue with.
Glassware: Rocks Glass
Garnish: Lime wheel and Half salt rim
Ingredients
60ml
A joven espadín at about 40% ABV, with balanced smoke and a mixing price. The intense single-village bottles are worth drinking neat and largely wasted under lime and salt.
30ml
Squeezed the same day. The Tommy’s measure: smoke is heavy, and the lime keeps the drink bright.
15ml
Agave syrup poured straight from the bottle, not cut with water. Sweetening an agave spirit with agave supports the smoke instead of competing with it, as triple sec would.
Instructions
Squeeze the lime juice the same day.
Run a spent lime half around the outside of half the rim of a rocks glass, roll it in flaky salt, and fill the glass with fresh cubed ice.
Add the mezcal, lime juice and agave syrup to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Strain over the fresh ice.
Garnish with a lime wheel.
Our version
The Tommy’s Margarita measures as Difford’s Guide gives them (60ml, 30ml of lime, 15ml of agave syrup), with joven espadín mezcal in place of tequila, and the agave syrup poured uncut, as on our Spicy Margarita.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Use a joven espadín and keep the rarer bottles for sipping. Espadín’s smoke is balanced and it is priced to be mixed; a single-village tobalá at three times the money is largely lost under lime and salt. Salt half the rim, on the outside only. Salt dulls bitterness and lifts sweetness, so each mouthful can go either way, and none of it falls into the drink. For a first mezcal drink, split the base: 30ml of mezcal and 30ml of blanco tequila. The smoke becomes a note rather than the whole drink.
Behind the Mezcal Margarita
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The frame is the Tommy’s Margarita, which Julio Bermejo made at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco; Difford’s Guide dates it to circa 1987 or 1988, and Bermejo told Patrón it was around 1989 or 1990. Once the frame was agave syrup rather than triple sec, mezcal went in with no other change.
Why the Tommy’s Frame
A classic Margarita uses orange liqueur, and the orange does more than sweeten: it adds a flavour of its own beside the agave.
Mezcal’s smoke occupies the same ground and is louder. The two compete, and you taste that something expensive is in the glass without being able to say what.
Agave syrup sweetens and adds almost nothing else, so the smoke has clear air.
The Margarita Family
Four Margaritas, measure by measure; the Margarita and Tommy’s rows are the IBA’s
Margarita (IBA)
- Spirit
- 50ml blanco tequila
- Lime
- 15ml
- Sweetener
- 20ml triple sec
Tommy’s Margarita (IBA)
- Spirit
- 60ml 100% agave tequila
- Lime
- 30ml
- Sweetener
- 30ml agave nectar
Spicy Margarita
- Spirit
- 60ml blanco tequila, three jalapeño slices
- Lime
- 30ml
- Sweetener
- 15ml agave syrup, uncut
Mezcal Margarita
- Spirit
- 60ml joven espadín mezcal
- Lime
- 30ml
- Sweetener
- 15ml agave syrup, uncut
| Drink | Spirit | Lime | Sweetener |
|---|---|---|---|
| Margarita (IBA) | 50ml blanco tequila | 15ml | 20ml triple sec |
| Tommy’s Margarita (IBA) | 60ml 100% agave tequila | 30ml | 30ml agave nectar |
| Spicy Margarita | 60ml blanco tequila, three jalapeño slices | 30ml | 15ml agave syrup, uncut |
| Mezcal Margarita | 60ml joven espadín mezcal | 30ml | 15ml agave syrup, uncut |
Read the Tommy’s Margarita for the frame, or the Spicy Margarita for the same build with heat.
Which Mezcal
Espadín is the agave behind most mezcal, and joven espadín belongs here: present, balanced smoke at a sensible price.
Tobalá, tepeztate and the single-village bottlings deserve a copita’s attention, not 30ml of lime and a salt rim. You pay three times as much to taste a third as much.
The Salt Rim
Salt dulls the perception of bitterness and raises the perception of sweetness. In a smoky sour both help: the smoke reads less harsh and the agave a little fuller.
Salt only half the rim, so the drinker chooses, and only the outside, so none falls in. Use flaky salt rather than table salt.
How to Serve It
Shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strained over fresh cubed ice in a rocks glass, with half a salt rim and a lime wheel.
It suits charred and grilled food: the lime and salt cut through the fat, and the smoke meets the char.
Make it at home
The Spirit
MezcalMezcal is distilled in Mexico from cooked agave hearts, always 100% agave under Mexico’s standard, NOM-070, at 35 to 55% ABV, and counted at 40% in our recipes. Artisanal mezcal, cooked in pit or masonry ovens, is where the smoke usually comes from. Espadín is the common agave, poured from a split base under tequila in an Oaxacan Old Fashioned to a full 60ml in a Mezcal Margarita.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Mezcal Margarita?
Why is there no triple sec?
Which mezcal should I use?
What if the smoke is too strong?
How strong is a Mezcal Margarita?
Mezcal Margarita or Margarita: what changes?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Tommy’s Margarita” (secondary source: created circa 1987/88 by Julio Bermejo at his family’s Tommy’s in San Francisco; 60ml reposado tequila, 30ml lime juice, 15ml agave syrup; agave in place of triple sec).
- IBA, “Margarita” (official specification: 50ml tequila 100% agave, 20ml triple sec, 15ml lime juice).
- IBA, “Tommy’s Margarita” (official specification: 60ml 100% agave tequila, 30ml lime juice, 30ml agave nectar).
- Patrón Tequila (interview with Julio Bermejo), “A Visit With Julio Bermejo, Creator of Tommy’s Margarita” (the creator’s own account: around 1989 or 1990, 100% agave tequila and agave fructose cut with a little simple syrup; the restaurant opened in 1965).
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Tommy’s Margarita
A Tommy’s Margarita is 60ml blanco tequila made from 100% agave, 30ml fresh lime juice and 30ml agave syrup, shaken hard and strained into a rocks glass of fresh ice, with a lime wheel. The agave syrup is nectar cut one to one with water. There is no orange liqueur. About 2.4 UK units. Difford’s Guide says Julio Bermejo created it, dating it to circa 1987 or 1988, at his family’s Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, whose name the drink carries; Punch places it in the early ’90s. The IBA includes it in its New Era category with 60ml of 100% agave tequila, 30ml of lime and 30ml of agave nectar; we cut the nectar one to one with water. Without triple sec, the sweetener comes from the same plant as the spirit, and the tequila stands at the front of the drink. It is the plainest way to taste whether a bottle is any good.
Mezcal Negroni
A Mezcal Negroni is 30ml each of mezcal, Campari and sweet vermouth, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with an orange peel expressed over the top. About 2.4 UK units. The measures and the method are the Negroni’s; only the spirit changes. It is a substitution rather than an invention: Punch asked bartenders who might have made it first, and none claimed it. The Negroni’s equal-parts frame has always taken swaps, and mezcal is one of the more successful. Gin sits inside Campari’s bitterness. Mezcal pushes back, with roasted agave and smoke in a register Campari does not occupy, so the two hold each other in check and the vermouth binds them. The result is darker and drier on the finish than the gin original. A joven espadín with moderate smoke is the bottle to pour.
Oaxacan Old Fashioned
An Oaxacan Old Fashioned is 45ml of reposado tequila, 15ml of mezcal, 5ml of agave syrup and two dashes of Angostura bitters, built in a rocks glass over one large ice cube and stirred for 15 to 20 seconds, with a flamed orange twist. About 2.5 UK units. Punch dates it to 2007, at Death & Co. in Manhattan, with the bartender Phil Ward and the owner David Kaplan. It keeps the shape of the Old Fashioned, spirit, sugar, bitters and orange, and moves each part it can to agave. Splitting the spirit is the whole idea. Reposado brings body and a little oak for the sugar and bitters to sit on; 15ml of mezcal lays smoke over the top without taking over. Ward’s recipe, as Punch prints it, is built and stirred in the glass, and that is how we give it.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026