Low Alcohol Margaritas

All the flavor of a great margarita, less of the stuff that makes you regret all your life choices in the morning.

Photo by Brian Jones on Unsplash

If you live in Colorado, there’s a good chance you’ve been to The Rio Grand Mexican Restaurant. (If you live in Colorado and you’ve never been, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life.)

It’s one of our favorite restaurants largely because of their margaritas. Much of the time, restaurant margaritas tased like sugary limeaid with some tequila in it. I feel the same way about most margarita mixes. They are just too sweet.

The margaritas at the Rio are tart, strong, and not too sweet, which is just the way we like them. And now you can buy their margarita mix. The catch is that you have to actually go to the restaurant to buy it. Which is great news if you live in Colorado and terrible news if you don’t.

And also we love a good margarita around here but have officially reached the age where too much tequila is NEVER worth it, so when we make margaritas at home, this is how we make them.

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Recipe Notes:

• I suggest an equal amount of real tequila and zero proof and usually use Ritual Zero Proof Tequila. But, how much you add of each is up to you. Ritual tequila isn’t bad but lacks the bite of the real stuff. What we’ve learned is that a splash of real tequila in with the zero proof stuff is enough to compensate.

• I learned a few years ago that the quality of tequila really does matter both to the taste of your margarita and how it makes you feel. I don’t know the science here, but it’s my personal experience that low quality alcohol is guaranteed to make me feel like shit the next day where the higher-shelf stuff (as long as I take it easy!) comes with fewer adverse effects.

• Like the tequila, it’s up to you how much orange liquor and orange juice you use. I like 1 ounce of the real stuff and 2 ounces of OJ, but play around with this ratio to find what tastes good to you. For a stronger orange flavor use a tablespoon or so of frozen orange juice concentrate.

• If you have a favorite margarita mix, you can use that in place of the Rose’s Lime Juice. Another great option is fresh lime juice with a few dashes of simple syrup.

• I got this Yeti Cocktail Shaker last year after we bought a sailboat. Because obviously, if you have a sailboat, you must also have the ability to make cocktails on the boat. I LOVE it and have since bought a second one for the RV (our actual home).

Serving Suggestions

For those of us who want some food with our booze (even if there’s not a lot of booze in our cocktail), here are a few meals that are just begging to be served with a cold, crisp margarita.

Mexican Adobo Chicken, Crispy Corn Tortilla Quesadillas, and Crispy Black Bean Tacos

1. Mexican Adobo Chicken (Adobo de Pollo) is chicken cooked in smoky, vinegar-based red chili sauce. This one-pot dish is pure comfort food that's super easy to make.

2. These Crispy Corn Tortilla Quesadillas are super quick and easy to prepare. Each quesadilla only takes about 5 minutes to make. And, they are the kind of lunch or dinner that I always have the ingredients for.

3. Creamy black beans, buttery potatoes, and plenty of melted cheese tucked into a crispy flour tortilla shell and served with sour cream salsa verde sauce. These crispy black bean tacos are quick and inexpensive to make but will fill you with happiness from head to toe. That, my friends, is what I call a good deal.

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Welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer, food photographer, passionate people watcher, and chaser of new experiences. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.

My husband and I are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. I write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure. Find out more.