The Margarita is indisputably tequila’s most famous incarnation as a mixed drink, and arguably one of the most widely – and wildly – popular beverages of the second half of the 20th century. Yet for such a ubiquitous libation, the Margarita’s true origins remain largely uncertain, although many theories, conjectures, and legends abound. These include inception stories taking place in different hotels or bars – on, north or south of the Mexican border; at a Texas socialite’s house in Acapulco; that it was named after a bartender’s girlfriend who had her head shot off; and that it was made for a silent movie star who simply couldn’t stomach her tequila any other way. As the publication Texas Monthly put it memorably in an issue: “Who created the Margarita, and when? It would be easier to identify the missing link between man and ape.” That was back in 1995 and it still isn't any easier.
One story goes that Margarita Sames, a
Texas socialite, originally came up with the Margarita during the 1948
Christmas holiday at one of her parties in Acapulco, Mexico. She was attempting
to mix tequila with Cointreau and eventually added lime and a salt rim.
According to Sames, the drink remained unnamed or was simply referred to as
‘Margarita’s drink’ until her husband gave her a set of champagne glasses with
her first name engraved on them, and the drink’s name was born. The cocktail’s
recipe was spread by many of the social matron’s influential friends, among
them John Wayne and the Hilton family. This is the inception story that the
French triple sec producer Cointreau has officially adopted.
Danny Herrera is said to have invented the
Margarita in the late '40s at the Rancho La Gloria Hotel, located about seven
miles south of Tijuana in Baja California. As the story goes, he created the
drink for Marjorie King, a showgirl and star of the silent screen. She had
claimed to be allergic to every type of alcohol except tequila, although she
couldn’t drink it straight or with lime and salt. Herrera mixed three parts
tequila, two parts Cointreau and one part fresh lemon juice, serving it in a
stemmed glass rimmed with rock salt, and named the drink ‘Margarita,’ Spanish
for Marjorie. When, later in his life, Herrera was asked when exactly he had
first mixed this drink, he thought it would have been in October or November of
1947 or 1948, adding that: “Three things happen when you get old. You lose your
memory, and I can’t recall the other two.”
‘King Cocktail’ Dale DeGroff
identifies the roles of Sames and Herrera as being the most “key or
instrumental,” if not in the Margarita’s creation, then at least almost
certainly in its proliferation.
There's also the story attached to
Vern Underwood Sr., then-president of Young’s Market Co., which had acquired
the California distribution of Jose Cuervo in the 1930s. Underwood credited
Johnnie Durlesser, at the time a bartender at the Tail of the Cock in Los
Angeles, as having created the Margarita, after he asked Durlesser to recreate
a drink he had tried in Mexico. Durlesser allegedly named the drink he created
after his wife Margaret (hispanicised to Margarita). Underwood began marketing
this ‘new-found’ drink, taking out full-page advertisements made famous by the
slogan “Margarita, more than a girl’s name.” Regardless of whether Johnnie
Durlesser actually created the first Margarita, Underwood’s ad campaign helped
to boost the drink to superstardom and possibly even had an influence in
propelling the Cuervo brand to the market leader position it now enjoys.
Next, there's Francisco ‘Pancho’
Morales, who claims to have invented the Margarita on the 4th of
July, 1942. According to the legend, a customer came to ‘Tommy’s Place’, a bar
in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and ordered a Magnolia (a cocktail consisting of
brandy, Cointreau, and egg yolk, topped with champagne). Pancho, who was
tending bar at the time, could not remember the recipe and instead improvised,
mixing a drink with two parts tequila, one part triple sec and one part fresh
lime, serving the drink in a salt-rimmed cocktail glass, and renaming it the
Margarita.
An even earlier theory surrounds Danny Negrete, who claims to have invented the
Margarita in 1936. The story goes that Negrete created the drink for his
girlfriend at the bar he had opened with his brother in the Garci Crespo hotel,
in Puebla, Mexico, naming the drink after her – comprised of equal parts
tequila, triple sec, and lime juice, served in a rocks glass over crushed ice.
However, according to Salvador Negrete, Daniel’s son, his father created the
drink in honour of his sister-in-law at his brother David’s wedding (you can
probably guess her name). It is also noteworthy to add that Danny Negrete went
on to work at a number of other bars in Mexico, one of which being the Agua
Caliente racetrack, in Tijuana – yet another venue claiming to be the birthplace
of the drink.
These are just a few of the dozens of
theories. Other stories suggest that it was created in homage to actress Rita
Hayworth, whose real name was Margarita Cansino; or for singer Peggy (Margaret)
Lee in 1948 at the legendary Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas.
One of the earliest mentions of the
Margarita in print is from the December 1953 issue of Esquire proclaiming “She’s from Mexico, and her name is the Margarita
cocktail,” with the recipe quoted as one ounce of tequila with a dash of triple
sec and the juice of a lime or lemon.
Prior to that, the 1937 Cafe Royal Cocktail Book included a
drink called the Picador, made up of tequila, Cointreau and lime juice. Ted
Haigh, author of Vintage Spirits &
Forgotten Cocktails maintains that this is likely to be the original
cocktail and was renamed Margarita. As Haigh explains, surprising as it may be,
tequila was much more popular as a cocktail ingredient in the UK in this period
than it was in the US perhaps, just as the origins of the cocktail and punch
have recently been traced to England, the Margarita’s predecessor (sharing its
recipe if not its name) could have been conceived in England. So, is it all
about the salt rim? Does a Margarita require a salt rim in order to use that
name? Or should a Margarita without a salt rim correctly be named a Picador?
Others, namely drinks historian Dave Wondrich, maintain that the Margarita was likely to have evolved out of the ‘Daisy’ category of drinks; a Daisy being a base spirit, citrus, orange liqueur, and dash of soda water. Sound familiar? Oh, and Margarita translates as ‘daisy’ in Spanish. However, this theory does not take into account the fact that, although the Tequila Daisy was a popular libation before the emergence of the Margarita, daisies by that time had mutated to include grenadine in the recipe, taking the drink another step further away from the Margarita.
Although most purists will assert that traditionally a Margarita is strictly made up of tequila, lemon or lime juice, triple sec, and a salt rim, renowned cocktail bartenders and tequila experts Dick Bradsell and Julio Bermejo agree that a Margarita is essentially a tequila sour, in the sense that it contains tequila, citrus, and a sweetener. In this case, the sweetener is not necessarily an orange-flavoured liqueur, nor is it necessarily alcoholic. The Tommy’s Margarita, sweetened with agave syrup, is a good example of a libation falling under this broader definition. It is also noteworthy to mention that today – to the masses – the name ‘Margarita’ has come to represent a myriad of different tequila-based mixed drinks, in much the same way that Martinis now refer to virtually anything served in the conical stemmed glass of the same name. The same also applies to the ‘cocktail’, which is now a catch-all term for almost any alcoholic beverage, rather than its original recipe of a base spirit, water, sugar, and bitters.
Will we ever know the Margarita’s
true origins? Like all the best legends, it is probably best to take these
different accounts of the drink’s alleged creation like you would a nice cold
Margarita – with a generous pinch of salt.
~EN
