Trends come and go, but every now and then something so delicious comes along that it’s canonized into a cocktail classic. We’re talking, of course, about the Margarita. Now one of the most popular tequila drinks in the United States, the Margarita has a long and contested history.
When you think “Margarita,” you might imagine a pale green, slushy beverage served in a wide-mouthed stemmed glass and a generously salted rim. However, early Margaritas probably didn’t look like the ones we drink today. In fact, the drink believed to be Margarita’s predecessor didn’t use tequila at all. A late 19th-century invention, the Brandy Daisy was typically mixed with lemon juice, Chartreuse, and—you guessed it—brandy.
As a cocktail, the Brandy Daisy was popular enough that it evolved over time, with variations using whiskey or gin as the base liquor. According to an article on Liquor.com, an Iowan news reporter named James Graham discovered the Tequila Daisy in Tijuana while on vacation with his wife in 1936. According to Graham, the bartender who invented the Tequila Daisy did so on accident when he grabbed the wrong liquor. In Spanish, the word for “daisy” is “margarita,” and it’s possible that the bartender’s tequila mishap tasted similar to a modern Margarita.
However, the Margarita’s origins aren’t so cut and dry. Some stories credit Johnny Durlesser, a bartender at the Los Angeles restaurant McHenry’s Tail O’ The Cock, who told Van Nuys News in 1955 that he invented the cocktail in 1937. Durlesser’s margarita recipe matches the recipe for a drink called a Picador, first published in the Cafe Royal Cocktail Book in 1937. The book was published by the United Kingdom Bartenders Guild, of which Durlesser was a member.
Bartender Carlos “Danny” Herrera, who owned the Tijuana-area restaurant Rancho La Gloria, also took credit for inventing the cocktail. The story goes that he first mixed the drink in 1938 for one of his patrons, aspiring actress Marjorie King. King was allegedly allergic to hard alcohol—but not tequila, and she would only drink it mixed.
Another story traced the Margarita’s origin back to Tommy’s Bar in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in 1942. According to a Texas Monthly article first published in 1974, the inventor of the Margarita was Francisco “Pancho” Morales, who was widely acknowledged as one of the best bartenders in Juarez before he immigrated to the United States. In the interview, Morales said he invented the drink on the fly when a customer asked him for a drink he didn’t know how to make. He mixed tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice—and the margarita was born.
Despite its early and possibly international origins, the margarita really took off with the invention of the frozen Margarita machine. Inspired by 7-Eleven slurpees, Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez and a friend adapted a soft serve ice cream machine to make a margarita slush. According to Martinez, once his restaurant opened the frozen beverage was so popular it was impossible to keep up with orders by individually mixing the drink in a blender. Plus, a slurpee-esque machine offered better consistency. Today, Martinez’s original frozen Margarita machine lives in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Undoubtedly, the Margarita has aged like a fine Añejo. Though the classic mix remains popular, Margaritas now come in a veritable rainbow of flavors like strawberry, blood orange, watermelon, peach...you name it, it probably exists. We may never truly know who invented the first Margarita, and it’s entirely possible—probable, even—that multiple bartenders recognized the enduring and delicious combination of lime juice, Cointreau, and tequila long before the Margarita was called a Margarita. Regardless, the Margarita remains a drink worth celebrating.
