Tequila Sour
A Tequila Sour is 60ml of reposado tequila, 30ml of fresh lime juice, 15ml of agave syrup and 15ml of pasteurised egg white, shaken with ice, strained back into the tin, dry shaken and fine strained into a chilled coupe, with a lime zest twist. Roughly 2.4 UK units, the figure Difford’s Guide prints. It contains egg, and Difford’s lists the white as an allergen. A vegan egg white alternative takes its place. It is the tequila sour in the strict sense: no orange liqueur, so by Difford’s reckoning not a Margarita.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Lime zest twist coin-sized, expressed over the drink and used as the garnish
Ingredients
4 drops (optional)
Difford’s names its own Margarita Bitters. No ingredient page.
Instructions
Chill a coupe and cut a coin-sized lime zest twist.
Squeeze the lime the day you serve it.
Add the tequila, lime juice, agave syrup and egg white to a shaker with ice.
Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds, then strain back into the shaker and discard the ice.
Dry shake without ice for 10 to 15 seconds.
Fine strain into the chilled coupe.
Add four drops of margarita bitters if you have them.
Express the lime twist over the drink and use it as the garnish.
Source: Difford's Guide (recipe 1934, measures, method and garnish as printed (60ml reposado tequila, 30ml lime juice, 15ml agave syrup, 15ml pasteurised egg white or vegan alternative, 4 drops optional Margarita Bitters; shaken with ice, strained back, dry shaken, fine strained into a chilled coupe, lime zest twist expressed). The brief and gap file say lemon; Difford’s prints lime. Difford’s lists the bitters as optional, not the egg white). Last checked 1 November 2026.
Expert Tip
Strain the first shake into the tin before you dry shake, and leave the ice behind. A single shake with ice leaves a thin foam. Agave syrup runs thicker than sugar syrup. Warm the bottle in your hand and measure it with a jigger, because a few extra millilitres will push the drink sweet. Fine strain over a clean glass. The foam is the point of the drink, and ice chips will pit it.
Behind the Tequila Sour
Flavour Profile
A Margarita without the orange liqueur
Difford’s Guide reviews the Tequila Sour by saying that a margarita with no orange liqueur, and it gives Tommy’s Margarita as the example, is not really a margarita at all but a tequila sour. The orange liqueur is one of the things that defines a Margarita, which sits in the daisy family. Difford’s allows that the Tequila Sour may lack the ring of the name Margarita but is a very tasty cocktail.
Difford’s gives the Tequila Sour neither a creator nor a year, so we name neither. Our Tommy’s Margarita is the same frame without the white, and the Margarita is the version with the liqueur.
Lime stands where lemon usually does
The Whiskey Sour is our model for the family, and it uses lemon. The Tequila Sour uses 30ml of lime, which suits agave better, and sweetens with 15ml of agave syrup, which Difford’s writes as agave nectar. That is four parts tequila to two of lime and one of syrup. On our Tommy’s page the nectar is cut with water, so 30ml of cut syrup carries about the same 15ml of nectar. In our reading the two drinks are sweetened to the same level, and the white is what separates them.
The egg white, stated plainly
Difford’s asks for 15ml of pasteurised egg white, or a vegan egg white alternative. It lists egg as an allergen in the recipe, so anyone with an egg allergy should leave this drink alone or use the vegan option. The NHS pregnancy guidance says hen eggs with the British Lion stamp can be eaten raw, and that hen eggs without it should not be eaten raw. Pasteurised carton white avoids the question.
Our Whiskey Sour page treats the white as optional. Difford’s does not mark it that way in its list, only the bitters, so we keep it in the spec. Leave it out and you have a plain tequila sour with a sharper, clearer finish, which is a different drink from the one Difford’s prints.
Shake, strain back, dry shake
Difford’s method is three steps. Shake everything with ice, strain back into the shaker, then dry shake without ice to emulsify the white, and fine strain into a chilled coupe. The first shake chills and dilutes. The second, with no ice, builds the foam, so do not skip either. A coin-sized lime zest twist is expressed over the top and used as the garnish. Four drops of Difford’s Margarita Bitters are optional.
The Tequila Sour beside three sours
Tequila Sour
- Spirit
- 60ml reposado tequila
- Citrus
- 30ml lime
- Sweetener
- 15ml agave syrup
- Egg white
- 15ml
Tommy’s Margarita
- Spirit
- 60ml blanco tequila
- Citrus
- 30ml lime
- Sweetener
- 30ml agave syrup, cut one to one with water
- Egg white
- None
Whiskey Sour
- Spirit
- 45ml bourbon
- Citrus
- 25ml lemon
- Sweetener
- 20ml sugar syrup
- Egg white
- 15ml, optional
Margarita
- Spirit
- 50ml blanco tequila
- Citrus
- 15ml lime
- Sweetener
- 20ml triple sec
- Egg white
- None
| Drink | Spirit | Citrus | Sweetener | Egg white |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tequila Sour | 60ml reposado tequila | 30ml lime | 15ml agave syrup | 15ml |
| Tommy’s Margarita | 60ml blanco tequila | 30ml lime | 30ml agave syrup, cut one to one with water | None |
| Whiskey Sour | 45ml bourbon | 25ml lemon | 20ml sugar syrup | 15ml, optional |
| Margarita | 50ml blanco tequila | 15ml lime | 20ml triple sec | None |
For more of the agave spirit, our complete guide to tequila covers the styles, including reposado.
Make it at home
The Spirit
TequilaTequila is a Mexican spirit distilled from the blue agave plant, made, the Oxford Companion says, only in Jalisco and municipalities of four other states; our recipes use 40% ABV. A label reading 100% agave means every sugar came from the plant, where plain tequila needs only 51%. Most of our 26 tequila recipes ask for 100% agave blanco.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Tequila Sour?
Is a Tequila Sour a Margarita?
Does it use lime or lemon?
Is the egg white raw?
Why dry shake a Tequila Sour?
Reposado, blanco or something else?
How strong is a Tequila Sour?
Are the bitters needed?
Can I batch it?
Sources.
Correct as of 1 November 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Tequila Sour” (recipe 1934: reposado tequila, lime, agave syrup, pasteurised egg white, optional bitters, shake, strain back, dry shake, fine strain, coupe; 2.4 units; egg listed as an allergen; review distinguishing it from the Margarita).
- NHS, “Foods to avoid in pregnancy” (hen eggs with the British Lion stamp can be eaten raw; hen eggs without it should not be eaten raw).
- NHS, “Calculating alcohol units” (the 14-units-a-week guidance and the units calculation).
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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.
Margarita
A Margarita is 50ml of 100% agave blanco tequila, 20ml of triple sec and 15ml of fresh lime juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe with half the rim salted, with a lime wheel. About 2.8 UK units. Strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, it is the same drink, longer and cooler. These are the IBA’s measures. The lime is the smallest pour, so the agave leads and the orange liqueur rounds it: the drink tastes of tequila first and sour second. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, in an entry by David Wondrich, calls the origins of the Margarita one of cocktail history’s most notorious swamps, with at least half a dozen plausible claimants, among them Carlos Herrera at Rancho La Gloria in 1947, Margarita Sames in Acapulco in 1948 and the bartender Santos Cruz in Galveston in the same year. It finds the drink under the name Margarita in print in September 1953, in a California newspaper column, followed soon after by Esquire.
Whiskey Sour
A Whiskey Sour is 45ml of bourbon, 25ml of fresh lemon juice and 20ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard with ice, then poured through a strainer onto fresh cubes in a rocks glass, with half an orange slice and a cherry. Add 15ml of egg white, dry shaken first, and dot the foam with Angostura. About 1.8 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. The IBA’s egg white is optional and only a few drops; we use 15ml, about half a white, because that is what a full foam takes. The bitters are not in the IBA recipe, and they only go on when there is foam to hold them. The name is in print by 1870, in a Wisconsin newspaper, and the sour is older still: Jerry Thomas printed brandy, gin and rum sours in 1862. Difford’s Guide lists a Boston Sour as bourbon soured with lemon juice and smoothed by egg white.
Pisco Sour
A Pisco Sour is 60ml of pisco, 30ml of fresh lemon juice, 20ml of sugar syrup and one egg white, dry shaken for 10 to 15 seconds, then shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with three drops of Angostura on the foam. About 2.4 UK units. The egg white is raw. The measures are the IBA’s. The Oxford Companion says the drink was first served at Morris’ Bar in Lima, which Victor Morris operated from 1916 to 1929, that the first known recipe appeared in a Lima cookbook in 1924 without egg white or bitters, and that one theory has Mario Bruiget, a young pupil of Morris’s, modifying it at the Maury Hotel in Lima before 1928. The Companion says a similar recipe was published in Santiago, Chile, in 1930, again without egg white or bitters, and that many regions of Chile still mix it closer to that formula. In Peru it is mixed with local lemons, which the Companion says taste between lemons and limes; the IBA lists lemon. The Companion adds that Pisco Sour Day is celebrated in Peru on the first Saturday of February.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 1 November 2026