This quick recipe for a homemade blood orange margarita is a perfect escape from the winter blues! Almost as good as a hot sunny beach.
Photography by Sophie MacKenzie.
We post a lot of sourdough bread and sourdough baking (and I mean A LOT), but we also love making cocktails! With blood oranges now in season, we felt it was time to show you how to make a terrific blood orange margarita!
This is a fairly standard recipe, but we added Aperol to the mix. If you’re not familiar, Aperol is a bitter, orange-forward, Italian aperitif. It’s the younger sibling of Campari, but with half the alcohol, which makes it lighter tasting and more accessible in flavour. Aperol can be found at most major liquor stores.
We went the standard route of shaking the ingredients with ice and straining them into a salt-rimmed cocktail glass. If you don’t own a cocktail shaker, vigorously mix the ingredients with ice and then strain into the glass.
We recommend that you don’t serve the margarita on the rocks because it will dilute the alcohol and weaken the flavour. Keep in mind that the blood orange cocktail won’t be quite the same if not shaken since shaking adds aeration.
Ingredients
- Tequila: we used Jose Cuervo because it is affordable and widely available but any choice of tequila will do.
- Curacao: do not use blue Curacao! Dry curacao adds beautiful orange flavour without cloying sweetness. Do not use simple syrup or agave nectar in place of Curacao.
- Aperol: a slightly bitter, orange-forward Italian aperitif. It adds a gorgeous boost of colour to blood orange juice margaritas.
- Blood Orange Juice: a member of the citrus family with deep orange to reddish flesh.
- Salt: we use fine grind sea salt or iodized table salt.
- Lime Juice: fresh is always best but you could try bottled lime juice in an extreme pinch.
Recommended Tools
- Cocktail shaker
- Cocktail glass
- Citrus juicer
- Shallow bowl (for salt)
Method
Lightly wet the rim of a cocktail glass with blood orange juice. Dip the rim of the glass in salt and shake off any excess.
Pour all of the liquid ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake well with lots of ice.
Strain the margarita into the prepared glass. Garnish with a piece of blood orange peel before serving.
Tips & Notes
- We use salt for our rim, but if you want to level up try to find a bottle of Tanjin, a Mexican spice mixture made with chilli peppers, salt, and lime.
- To make a large batch of homemade blood orange margaritas, simple scale up the amount of ingredients into a pitcher and chill for at least three hours. You should still aerate the cocktail for flavour and texture, so pour it into a blender and pulse without ice before serving in salt-rimmed glasses.
- This is not a frozen margarita recipe. Frozen margaritas are a completely different drink.
Substitutions
- Tequila: any reposado or blanco tequila will work. Reposado tequila is aged and will add a hint of smooth oaky flavour. Mezcal is also a fine substitute.
- Blood Orange Juice: you can substitute any citrus juice you like.
- Aperol: can be substituted with a splash of Campari. You can also swap in a few drops of orange bitters but the flavour won’t be the same.
- Curacao: grand Marnier, Cointreau, or Triple Sec are all good subs for Curacao, however, keep in mind they all have different sweetness levels.
More Fabulous Cocktails
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Blackberry Bourbon Smash
Strawberry Lemonade Sangria
Hibiscus Sour Cocktail
Recipe
Blood Orange Margarita With Aperol
Description
Equipment
- Cocktail shaker
- Cocktail glass
Ingredients
- Salt
- 1 ½ oz tequila
- 1 oz blood orange juice
- ½ oz lime juice
- ¼ oz Aperol
- ¼ oz Curaçao, not blue
- Orange peel for garnish
Instructions
- Lightly wet the rim of a cocktail glass with blood orange juice. Dip the rim of the glass in salt and shake off any excess.
- Pour all of the liquid ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake well with lots of ice. Strain the margarita into the prepared glass. Garnish with a piece of blood orange peel before serving.
Notes
- We use salt for our rim, but if you want to level up try to find a bottle of Tanjin, a Mexican spice mixture made with chilli peppers, salt, and lime.
- To make a large batch of homemade blood orange margaritas, simple scale up the amount of ingredients into a pitcher and chill for at least three hours. You should still aerate the cocktail for flavour and texture, so pour it into a blender and pulse without ice before serving in salt-rimmed glasses.
- This is not a frozen margarita recipe. Frozen margaritas are a completely different drink.
Substitutions
- Tequila: any reposado or blanco tequila will work. Reposado tequila is aged and will add a hint of smooth oaky flavour. Mezcal is also a fine substitute.
- Blood Orange Juice: you can substitute any citrus juice you like.
- Aperol: can be substituted with a splash of Campari. You can also swap in a few drops of orange bitters but the flavour won’t be the same.
- Curacao: grand Marnier, Cointreau, or Triple Sec are all good subs for Curacao, however, keep in mind they all have different sweetness levels.
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