This 4-Ingredient Cocktail Will Ruin Classic Margaritas for You

On a recent trip to Mexico City for the first time, I took a tacos and mezcal crawl with amazing tour guide Rocío García the very first night there so that we could immediately be immersed in the local food and drink. García is a member of the family that has been making their brand of mezcal, Naa Liuu, for three generations, and she taught us how mezcal is made and the differences between tequila and mezcal. The tour started off with sipping mezcals straight to experience the nuances in the flavors, but my favorite drink of the night was when we were served mezcalitas. These mezcalitas tasted like a margarita, but with a subtle smoky flavor, and I absolutely loved the blend of sweet, tart, and smoke. 

After seeing mezcalitas on menus all over CDMX, I assumed that they were just margaritas with mezcal swapped in for tequila. But García shared with me that mezcalita means a “refreshing mix of any fruit or fruit pulp, sweetener, and mezcal with ice.” Mezcalitas were created in the 1950s in Mexico City to slowly introduce drinkers to the taste of mezcal as well as counteract the high alcohol content in mezcal by mixing it with other ingredients.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that lime-based mezcalita I had loved, so I purchased some mezcal recently and started shaking up cocktails at home to recreate it. In my first attempt, I used mezcal, Cointreau, and lime juice, but the flavors were a bit muddled and flat. For my second attempt, I made a mezcalita known as a mezcal margarita. It had the same ingredients Garcia said were in the ones I had been served: mezcal, lime, simple syrup, and just a splash of sparkling water at the end. Bingo! The simple syrup sweetened the drink, yet allowed the flavors of the mezcal to shine through. I was transported back to CDMX, and now the mezcal margarita is part of my regular cocktail rotation at home.