Agave-Spirit Lovers, This List Is for You (2024)

By Spirit

These classic and contemporary recipes will let you explore the range of the agave spirits.

Olivia French

Olivia French is writer and content creator based in Charlotte, N.C., whose experience spans co*cktail trends, travel and lifestyle.

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Updated 05/4/22

Agave-Spirit Lovers, This List Is for You (1)

The first half of this list is “bartender’s choice” co*cktails, contemporary creations that come straight from the co*cktail shakers of today’s top bartenders. The second half is classics, both pre-Prohibition standards and more modern ones that have achieved worldwide acclaim. You’re sure to find something for every palate among these 20 drinks.

Think of tequila co*cktails, and the Margarita is sure to come to mind. It’s a great drink, certainly, but the agave spirits can be used in so much more than the popular combination of tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur. From the disco-era Tequila Sunrise and classic Old Fashioned riffs to the minty-sweet Polar Bear and the Negroni-leaning Loaded Pistol, these 20 drinks are sure to show you a whole new side of tequila and mezcal.

Smoke Follows Beauty
Warm up and cool down at the same time with this Spicy Margarita riff from bartender Ricky Agustin, formerly of New York City’s Pegu Club and now the owner of Seattle’s Mountaineering Club. He combines mezcal with serrano-infused triple sec, muddled cucumber and cilantro, lime juice, and agave syrup to produce a refreshing drink that brings the heat.
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Lone Ranger
Tequila and rosé wine are both warm-weather staples, and bar pro Jeffrey Morgenthaler had the good sense to combine them for this pale-pink mix of the spirit, lemon juice, and simple syrup topped with rosé sparkling wine. Think of the result as a French 75 on vacation in Mexico.
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Añejo Old Fashioned
Bartending vet Julie Reiner of NYC’s Clover Club and Leyenda created this Old Fashioned riff in which a heavy pour of aged tequila forms the base, joined by agave nectar, Angostura bitters, and a muddled swath of orange peel. A co*cktail cherry garnish is the perfect accent to the agave nightcap.
Get the recipe.
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Ready Fire Aim
Spice meets its match in this co*cktail from Steve Schneider of Employees Only. Joven mezcal is joined by lime and pineapple juices, honey-pineapple syrup, and a few dashes of habanero shrub. A sprinkling of ground pink peppercorns atop the pineapple juice’s froth finishes off the spicy-sweet concoction.
Get the recipe.
Continue to 5 of 20 below.
Polar Bear
Mezcal makes fast friends with blanc vermouth, creme de menthe, and celery bitters in this unusual co*cktail created by The Bon Vivants, the group behind San Francisco’s Bon Voyage and Trick Dog. These four ingredients may not often be found together, but one sip of the Polar Bear shows why they should play in the same glass more often.
Get the recipe.
Mezcal Mule
A riff on the classic Moscow Mule, this iteration, created by Jim Meehan while at PDT in NYC, swaps out vodka in favor of mezcal, giving the mule even more of a kick, while a few additional ingredients add surprising elements. Cucumber slices get muddled with lime juice, then are joined by mezcal, passion fruit puree, and agave nectar. It all gets topped with ginger beer for the drink’s trademark spicy touch.
Get the recipe.
Tequila Mockingbird
New York City bartender Greg Seider created this spicy and sweet riff on a Margarita. The usual tequila, lime juice, and agave nectar are joined by muddled jalapeño slices and cubes of watermelon, rendering a wonderfully refreshing summer sipper.
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Loaded Pistol
From Erick Castro of San Diego’s Polite Provisions and Raised by Wolves, this drink combines mezcal, sweet vermouth and Strega, an herbal digestivo liqueur, plus a dash of grapefruit bitters. A dried grasshopper—yes, grasshopper—salt rim accents the drink’s complex flavors.
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Continue to 9 of 20 below.
Bright Lights
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The co-owner of Brooklyn’s Leyenda, Ivy Mix, employs tequila as well as another agave spirit, sotol, in this co*cktail, combining both with verjus, celery bitters, and a syrup made from rosé cava to produce a delightfully complex and spirit-forward sipper.
Get the recipe.
Trato Hecho
If you have Last Word ingredients on hand, consider switching up your base spirit. Phil Ward, the former owner of New York City’s now-shuttered Mayahuel, infuses mezcal with pineapple, then combines it with the requisite green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and fresh lime juice for a slightly tropical twist on the classic.
Get the recipe.
Paloma
It may play second fiddle to the Margarita here in the States, but the Paloma is a refreshing and easy-to-make cooler that’s consumed in droves in its home country. Most likely first created sometime in the 1950s, this drink can be built right in the glass with just tequila, grapefruit soda, and fresh lime juice.
Get the recipe.
Margarita
It’s one of the most popular co*cktails in North America and for good reason. The combination of tequila, orange liqueur, and lime (plus simple syrup and/or agave nectar as you prefer) strikes all the right notes. As a bonus, this recipe works with either tequila or mezcal, leaving it up to your interpretation and preferences.
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Continue to 13 of 20 below.
Tequila Sunrise
With colors evoking a beautiful summer sunrise, there’s no question how this drink got its name. Created in the early 1970s at The Trident bar in Sausalito, California, the mix of tequila, orange juice, and grenadine gained notoriety after Mick Jagger tasted it at a party to kick off The Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour and subsequently ordered it at stops across the country, dubbing it “the cocaine and Tequila Sunrise tour.”
Get the recipe.
Oaxaca Old Fashioned
A newer addition to the classic co*cktail canon, this take on an Old Fashioned is one of the best ways to enjoy agave spirits. Created in 2007 by Ward at Death & Co., it mixes lightly aged reposado tequila with mezcal, agave nectar, and Angostura bitters, then adds a flamed orange peel for a burst of flavor and dramatic flair.
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Bloody Maria
Your usual Bloody Mary is fine, but the addition of tequila and hot sauce takes the brunch favorite to new heights. This version has likely been around for decades, but our recipe brings it to a higher level of perfection with a mix of tequila, tomato, savory spices, and two kinds of hot sauce. An over-the-top garnish of lemon, lime and cucumber plus a skewer of sweet pepper slices, jalapeño slices and queso fresco completes the drink.
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El Diablo
The recipe for this midcentury classic, which combines tequila, creme de cassis, lime juice, and ginger beer, first appeared in “Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink,” published in 1946. It’s stunning either mixed or layered, giving you free rein to create it however you prefer.
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Continue to 17 of 20 below.
Spicy Margarita
Trends might come and go, but this jalapeño-fueled twist on the classic mix of tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur has become nearly as ubiquitous as the Margarita itself. Sometimes the addictive spice comes from infusing the spirit with peppers, but we find the best flavor comes from muddling fresh jalapeño coins right in the shaker.
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Joaquín Simó, most recently a partner of New York City’s now-closed Pouring Ribbons, created this modern classic of mezcal, Aperol, yellow Chartreuse, and lime juice at Death & Co. NYC in 2011. He describes the co*cktail as a cross between a Last Word and a Paper Plane: Like the former, it includes lime juice and Chartreuse (albeit a different type), and like the latter, Aperol. Like both, it’s deliciously complex.
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Tommy's Margarita
In the early ’90s, Julio Bermejo, now the owner of his family’s San Francisco spot Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, proved that a Margarita could be much more balanced than the cloying sour-mix versions most people knew at the time. He opted to use freshly squeezed lime juice instead of the bottled stuff and employ agave syrup as a sweetener rather than orange liqueur, all the better to spotlight the high-quality tequila he was using.
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Mexican Firing Squad
Drinks historian Charles H. Baker first recorded this tart mix of tequila, lime juice, grenadine, and Angostura bitters in his 1939 book The Gentleman’s Companion, but he happened upon it two years earlier at La Cucaracha co*cktail Club in Mexico City on a research trip. Consider it an alternative to your usual Margarita.
Get the recipe.