Picante de la Casa
The Picante de la Casa is Soho House's chilli Margarita, and it is built on the Tommy's rather than the classic: tequila, lime and agave syrup, no orange liqueur. Chilli goes into the shaker with a pinch of coriander, and a clapped coriander sprig finishes the glass. The coriander is what makes it worth the trip. A spicy Margarita is chilli and agave, which is a good combination that stops there. Adding coriander turns the drink into salsa: chilli, lime, coriander and agave are the same four things a decent pico de gallo is built on, and the glass tastes like it knows that. It is attributed to Chris Ojeda at the West Hollywood house and it is now poured across the group to the same specification. Reposado rather than blanco is the other house decision, and it matters: a few months in oak rounds the tequila enough to carry heat without the pepper and the chilli fighting each other.
Glassware: Rocks Glass
Garnish: Coriander sprig
Ingredients
50ml
A few months in oak rounds off the pepper that blanco leads with, which is what lets it carry chilli heat without the two fighting. It is the house's choice and it is the right one.
25ml
A full Tommy's measure at half the tequila. It is doing structural work rather than seasoning here, and it also carries the chilli heat forward, which is why the sweetener stays small.
12.5ml
Sweetening an agave spirit with agave, diluted one to one before it goes in. It is sweeter than simple syrup, which is why twelve and a half millilitres is enough against a full lime measure.
2 slices, deseeded, top reserved
Two slices, deseeded and muddled lightly. The seeds and the pale membrane carry most of the heat, and leaving them in makes a drink that burns rather than one that warms.
1 pinch, plus a sprig
A pinch muddled in and a sprig clapped over the top. It is what turns chilli and lime into something that tastes like salsa, and it is worth asking a guest about before you build it.
Instructions
Muddle the chilli slices and the pinch of coriander lightly in a shaker.
Add the reposado, lime juice and agave syrup.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 12 seconds.
Fine strain into a rocks glass over fresh cubed ice.
Clap the coriander sprig between your palms, lay it on top, and crown with the reserved chilli top.
Expert Tip
Deseed the chilli and muddle lightly. The seeds and the pale membrane hold most of the capsaicin, and leaving them in produces a drink that is hot rather than warm. Two slices, pressed gently rather than crushed, gives heat you can taste through rather than heat you have to get past. Ask about the coriander before you build it. A genuine minority taste soap rather than citrus, and it is a gene rather than a preference, so there is no persuading anyone out of it. A sprig of flat-leaf parsley and an extra squeeze of lime is the polite substitution. Clap the sprig rather than dropping it in. Warming the leaves between your palms releases the aromatics; bruising it releases the bitterness instead.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The drink is attributed to Chris Ojeda, working at Soho House West Hollywood, and it has since become the group's most ordered cocktail. Like the Eastern Standard it exists as a written house specification rather than as a bartender's improvisation, which is what allows it to be poured identically in a dozen cities.
That is a different design problem from the one most cocktails solve. It has to be reproducible by someone who has never tasted the original, at volume, on a busy terrace, and it has to survive being made slightly wrong. The recipe is unusually forgiving for something with fresh chilli in it.
Built on a Tommy's, Not a Margarita
A classic Margarita is tequila, lime and orange liqueur. A Tommy’s Margarita, from Tommy's in San Francisco, replaces the orange liqueur with agave syrup, so the only sweetness in the glass comes from the same plant as the spirit.
That matters here. Orange liqueur adds a flavour of its own, and against chilli and coriander it is one thing too many. Agave syrup sweetens and gets out of the way, which leaves room for the two things the drink is actually about. Everything the Picante does is built on that decision, and a version made on a standard Margarita tastes muddled by comparison.
The Coriander
Chilli in a Margarita is not a new idea, and the results are usually one-dimensional: heat, agave, lime, and not much conversation between them.
Coriander is what changes that. Chilli, lime, coriander and agave are, between them, the components of a pico de gallo, and the palate recognises the combination even when it arrives cold in a rocks glass. The drink stops being a Margarita with heat added and starts tasting composed.
It also comes with a caveat. A real minority of people carry a gene variant that makes coriander taste of soap, and they are not being difficult. Ask before you build. Flat-leaf parsley and a little extra lime gets you a good drink; it does not get you this one.
Reposado Rather Than Blanco
Blanco tequila leads with pepper and raw agave, both of which are sharp. Put chilli heat on top of that and the two compete: the drink gets hot in two different registers at once and neither is comfortable.
Reposado spends a few months in oak, which rounds the pepper off and adds a little vanilla and weight. The chilli then has something soft to sit against rather than something equally sharp, and the heat reads as warmth rather than as an attack. This is the single choice that separates the Picante from a competent spicy Margarita.
How to Serve It
Fine strained over fresh cubed ice in a rocks glass, with the clapped coriander sprig on top and the reserved chilli top riding on the ice.
The chilli top is not decoration, it is a warning, and an honest one. It belongs with food: this is a drink built for a terrace and something grilled, and it holds up against both.
The Spirit
TequilaRead the label before the price. Tequila only has to be 51% agave sugars, and no bottle is ever labelled mixto, so the words 100% agave are the only thing separating a spirit made from the plant from one made half from cane or corn.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Picante de la Casa?
Soho House's chilli Margarita: reposado tequila, lime and agave syrup with deseeded chilli and coriander muddled in, fine strained over ice and finished with a clapped coriander sprig. It is built on a Tommy's rather than a classic Margarita.
How is it different from a spicy Margarita?
Two things: coriander, and reposado instead of blanco. The coriander turns chilli and lime into something that tastes like salsa, and the oak in the reposado gives the heat something soft to sit against rather than more sharpness.
What if coriander tastes like soap to me?
That is a real gene variant rather than fussiness, and there is no working around it. Substitute a sprig of flat-leaf parsley and an extra squeeze of lime. You will get a good spicy Margarita; you will not get this drink.
How hot should it be?
Warm rather than hot. Two deseeded slices muddled lightly is the standard build, and the seeds and pale membrane are where the heat lives. Leave them in and the chilli stops being a flavour and becomes the whole drink.
Master the Techniques
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The Spicy Margarita is the twenty-first century’s favourite margarita and a rare modern standard with no inventor to credit. Chilli-spiked tequila drinks are as old as Mexico, and the muddled-jalapeño margarita simply condensed out of the 2000s agave boom until every bar had a version. By the 2020s it was among the most ordered cocktails on earth. The build is a Tommy’s Margarita with the heat folded in: fresh jalapeño muddled into the shake, agave syrup smoothing the burn, lime holding the frame. Capsaicin and agave are natural partners, the pepper’s green vegetal side speaking the tequila’s own language, and the drink reads bright first and warm second. The dial is yours: seeds out for warmth, seeds in for fire, or the bottle-infusion route for a party’s worth of consistency. However it arrives, the chilli margarita is that rarest thing, a fashion that genuinely improved the classic it borrowed from.
Tommy’s Margarita
The Tommy’s Margarita was born at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, where Julio Bermejo, working his family’s floor from the early 1990s, made two changes to the house margarita that became modern doctrine: out went the triple sec, in came agave syrup, and the well tequila became 100 per cent agave or nothing. The result carries his family’s restaurant name into every serious bar on earth. The logic is like-with-like. Orange liqueur, the classic margarita’s sweetener, brings its own flavour to the party; agave syrup brings only sweetness with the plant’s own accent, which lets the tequila stand at the front of its own drink. Three ingredients, and the spirit finally audible: the Tommy’s is less a variation than an argument about what a margarita is for. It is also the drink that taught a generation to read tequila labels. Bermejo evangelised 100 per cent agave bottlings from behind his bar decades before the category boomed, and the Tommy’s remains the fastest way to taste why the words on the label matter.
Eastern Standard
The Eastern Standard is a cucumber and mint gin sour served over ice, and it is the house cocktail of Soho House, poured to the same specification in every club the group runs. The name is a time-zone joke that doubles as the point: the drink is meant to taste identical in London and New York. It is an Eastside with the serve changed. Where the Eastside goes up in a coupe, this comes over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with a slightly fuller pour of spirit and vodka written into the recipe as a standing alternative rather than a concession. That sounds like a small set of differences and is not. Up and short, the Eastside is a cocktail you finish with attention. Over ice, at this length, the same flavours become something you can hold for an hour, which is exactly what a members' club needs and exactly why the drink turns up on terraces everywhere in summer.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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