Editorial
Tequila finally has the cocktail programme it deserved 30 years ago. The format moved past the salt-and-lime margarita in the late 1990s when Tommy's of San Francisco swapped triple sec for agave syrup. Twenty-five years later, the best bars in Mexico City, New York and London run 8-cocktail tequila menus that rival their gin and rum programmes.
Tommy's Margarita remains the global tequila cocktail standard. The Paloma is the most-ordered tequila drink in the world. Tequila Old Fashioned and Naked and Famous are the modern bartender's favourites. Reposado is the cocktail tequila of choice in 2026; blanco for citrus drinks, anejo for the Old Fashioned variants. Mezcal substitutions covered separately below.
This list ranks tequila cocktails by drink discipline, ingredient honesty and how often they appear on the menus of the bars our editors consider serious. Recipes are included where they fit on the page; the full recipe sheets are at the bar pages linked from each entry.
Use 100 percent agave tequila in everything below. Mixto (anything labelled "gold" or "silver" without the 100 percent agave qualifier) damages every cocktail it enters. Reposado is the workhorse, blanco the citrus tool, anejo the spirit-forward option.
Six cocktails that every serious tequila bar pours. Each has a fixed recipe accepted across the industry and a documented origin.
Tommy's Margarita was invented in 1990 by Julio Bermejo at his family's San Francisco restaurant. The recipe swaps triple sec for fresh agave syrup, giving the drink a clean agave-forward profile that the classic Margarita lacks. The IBA adopted it as a Contemporary Classic in 2020.
Recipe: 2oz reposado tequila, 1oz fresh lime juice, 0.5oz agave syrup. Shake hard, double-strain into a chilled rocks glass with one large cube. No salt rim on a Tommy's; the agave does the work salt would have done.
Best time: before dinner, every dinner. Order: served at any serious cocktail bar worldwide.
The Paloma is the most-ordered tequila cocktail in Mexico and has been since the 1950s. The classic formula uses Squirt or Jarritos grapefruit soda; the bartender's version replaces the soda with fresh grapefruit juice, lime, agave and a soda topper. Both are correct.
Recipe (bartender version): 2oz blanco tequila, 1oz fresh grapefruit juice, 0.5oz lime, 0.25oz agave, soda water topper. Salt rim half the glass; serve over crushed ice. The grapefruit-soda version is the right call at a casual cantina.
Best time: lunch, every lunch. Order: served at every Mexican bar worldwide.
The Naked and Famous was invented at Death and Company in 2011 by Joaquin Simo. It is the bartender's introduction to mezcal: equal parts mezcal, Aperol, yellow Chartreuse and lime. The result is a citrus-bright, low-ABV drink that converts mezcal-skeptics.
Recipe: 0.75oz mezcal, 0.75oz Aperol, 0.75oz yellow Chartreuse, 0.75oz fresh lime. Shake hard, double-strain into a coupe. No garnish. The drink reads as mezcal-forward without the smoke dominating the room.
Best time: as a second drink, never the first. Order: now on most serious cocktail menus.
The classic Margarita predates Tommy's by 50 years and still has a place. The honest version uses Cointreau or Combier (not triple sec), fresh lime, and a 100 percent agave blanco. Salt rim mandatory. Anything else is a Margarita-flavoured slushie.
Recipe: 2oz blanco tequila, 1oz Cointreau, 1oz fresh lime juice. Shake hard, strain into a chilled coupe with a half salt rim. No ice unless served on the rocks. The 50/50 rocks version (50ml each of tequila and Cointreau) is the Cafe Royal Cocktail Book 1937 entry.
Best time: sunset, salt-rim required. Order: every Mexican bar, varying quality.
The Oaxaca Old Fashioned was invented at Death and Company in 2007 by Phil Ward. It applies the Old Fashioned template (spirit, sugar, bitters, water) to a 75/25 reposado-mezcal split. The result is the most-imitated mezcal cocktail of the last 20 years.
Recipe: 1.5oz reposado tequila, 0.5oz mezcal, 0.25oz agave syrup, 2 dashes Angostura bitters. Stir over ice, strain into a rocks glass over one large cube. Flamed orange peel. The mezcal float is the signature touch.
Best time: after dinner. Order: served at every Death and Company-trained bar.
The Tequila Sour applies the Whiskey Sour template to tequila. It is older than Tommy's and pre-dates the Margarita as a documented drink. Most modern bars run a Tequila Sour as their daily-drinker option for guests who want tequila but reject the Margarita.
Recipe: 2oz reposado tequila, 1oz fresh lime juice, 0.75oz agave syrup, 0.5oz egg white. Dry-shake hard for 20 seconds, wet-shake with ice, double-strain into a chilled coupe. Three drops Angostura bitters on the foam.
Best time: mid-evening, after the Paloma. Order: served at every cocktail bar that takes tequila seriously.
Six newer cocktails that have entered the global tequila programme since 2015. Each is now sufficiently distributed that any serious bar will recognise the order.
Most of these use reposado as the base spirit. Reposado has become the cocktail-tequila default because it carries enough oak to balance modifiers without dominating them.
Division Bell was invented at Mayahuel in New York by Phil Ward in 2008. The formula is 0.75oz each of mezcal, Aperol, fresh lime, and Maraschino. Shake, strain into a coupe, grapefruit peel garnish. The drink walks the line between aperitif and post-dinner.
Mayahuel closed in 2017 but the drink survived. It now appears on most serious mezcal menus in New York, London and Mexico City. The Maraschino is the structural ingredient; do not substitute Luxardo if the bar has Sgroppino or Casoni.
Best time: late brunch. Order: now on Mayahuel-trained bar menus globally.
The Hotel Nacional pre-dates the modern tequila revival; it was on the Hotel Nacional de Cuba's menu in the 1930s. It uses tequila despite the Cuban provenance because the original bartender preferred tequila to rum. Revived by London bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana around 2018.
Recipe: 1.5oz blanco tequila, 0.75oz pineapple juice, 0.5oz lime, 0.5oz apricot liqueur. Shake hard, double-strain into a coupe. The apricot is structural; do not substitute peach. Served at the best London cocktail bars.
Best time: warm-weather aperitif. Order: served at Lyaness, Connaught and most serious London bars.
The Mezcal Negroni is the most-poured mezcal substitution cocktail in the world. The format is the classic 1:1:1 Negroni with mezcal replacing gin. Use a mid-weight Tobala or Espadin (Del Maguero Vida is the standard) so the smoke does not overwhelm the Campari.
Recipe: 1oz mezcal, 1oz Campari, 1oz sweet vermouth. Stir over ice, strain into a rocks glass over one large cube. Flamed orange peel. The drink lasts 45 minutes if you sip; it lasts 8 if you drink it the way you would a normal Negroni.
Best time: pre-dinner. Order: served at every Italian aperitif bar worldwide.
Ranch Water is the West Texas highball that conquered America between 2018 and 2023. The formula is honest: 1.5oz blanco tequila, the juice of half a lime, and a cold Topo Chico mineral water poured into the still-capped bottle. Drink from the bottle.
The drink is a backbar regular at every American cocktail bar in 2026, but the proper version requires Topo Chico (not generic mineral water) and a 100 percent blanco tequila. Substitute lime, not lemon. Salt is optional; not traditional.
Best time: pool, beach, patio. Order: the standard Texas summer cocktail.
El Diablo first appeared in Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide in 1946 as a tequila-and-ginger-beer cocktail. The cassis is structural; the colour is the dark-red the name promises. The drink fell out of fashion in the 1990s and returned via the modern tiki revival.
Recipe: 1.5oz blanco tequila, 0.5oz fresh lime juice, 0.5oz creme de cassis, ginger beer to top. Build in a highball glass over ice. Lime wheel garnish. Fever-Tree ginger beer is the correct call.
Best time: mid-evening. Order: served at every tiki-program bar.
The Mezcal Mule is the simplest mezcal entry-point cocktail. Replace the vodka in a Moscow Mule with mezcal and serve in the copper mug for the cold conduction. The lime keeps the drink bright; the ginger beer dampens the smoke.
Recipe: 2oz mezcal, 0.75oz fresh lime, ginger beer to top. Build in a copper mug over crushed ice. Candied ginger and a lime wedge garnish. The drink ages well at the table; do not stir.
Best time: a long table dinner. Order: served at every mezcal-program bar.
Always specify 100 percent agave tequila when ordering. The cocktails above suffer noticeably with mixto. Reposado for the spirit-forward drinks; blanco for the citrus-forward; anejo only for the Old Fashioned variants.
For bar-specific tequila programmes, see best cocktail bars in Mexico City, best cocktail bars in New York and the global cocktail bars index. The broader spirits coverage is in our mezcal bars worldwide editorial.
Recipes verified against IBA Official Cocktail List, Death and Company: Cocktail Codex (2018), Difford's Guide tequila cocktail entries, and Punch Drink's tequila cocktail archive. Tommy's Margarita formula confirmed with Julio Bermejo's published recipes. Compiled by Priya Nair, Senior Cocktail Editor, with input from on-call bartenders in Mexico City, New York and London.
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