The Best 3-Ingredient Margarita for Cinco de Mayo

A lot of margarita recipes can be excellent, but there’s one we particularly adore.

Cinco de Mayo is just around the bend. Start stocking up on margarita glasses and pure agave tequila, because your new favorite margarita recipe is here.

If you’ve never tried a Tommy’s Margarita, let this be the year you try one for the first time. The drink is the brainchild of Julio Bermejo at San Francisco’s Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant. It came into being as he educated his customers about the charms of good tequila. In the 1990s, using the tasty vehicle that is the margarita, he devised a simpler, cleaner-tasting cocktail. The drink contains just three ingredients: agave syrup, fresh lime juice, and 100-percent agave tequila.

Without the clouding qualities of tequila “mixto,” which can contain wheat, corn, or additives, or distracting elements such as Cointreau or Triple Sec, this drink is a game-changer. All you can taste are bright lime, silky agave, and clean tequila. It’s the only recipe many margarita snobs will make.

Bermejo—a Mexican immigrant with roots in Oxkutzcab, in the Yucatan—is still, in his mid-eighties, running his restaurant with his family. Now he’s an internationally renowned tequila educator, and can walk you through the distinctive qualities of the various tequilas. But you don’t need to visit in order to enjoy his delicious drink. Here’s the recipe. ¡Salud !

Tommy’s Margarita Recipe

Ingredients

Salt
2 oz 100% agave blanco tequila
1 oz Lime juice
1⁄2 oz Agave nectar
Lime wheel, to garnish (Optional)

Directions

Prepare a chilled rocks glass with a salt rim, if desired. Add all of the ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake until very cold. Fine-strain over ice into prepared glass. Garnish with lime wheel.