How To Make A Christmas Margarita

It’s almost Christmas, which means it’s time to start brushing up on your bartending skills – you’ve got guests to impress. Margaritas are often seen as a summer drink, but this recipe adds a festive twist by adding calamansi, a Filipino citrus fruit which is growing in popularity. What better way to enjoy it than in a cocktail, sweet and tart in all the right places? Give this Christmas margarita recipe a try for the perfect festive tipple this December.

How To Make Your Margarita Festive

Classic Margarita

Tequila, triple sec, lime: a classic margarita is the height of elegance – classy in its simplicity. A fitting cocktail for the Mediterranean-inspired restaurant Wildflowers, located in Nelson’s Yard. However, bar manager Emanuel Ferris-Hue has elevated this drink for the festive period by adding a calamansi twist, creating a sophisticated drink you can easily make at home.

Adding A Calamansi Twist

If you visit the Philippines calamansi is everywhere, but most people in the UK probably haven’t heard of this fruit. It looks like a small lime, about one inch wide, and it is green when unripe and an orange-yellow colour when ripe. Its flavour is sweet and sour, used to brighten many Filipino dishes or to season cooking. The calamansi is also becoming increasingly popular worldwide. Between 2021 and 2022, there was a 51 percent increase in calamansi product introductions globally. You can now buy calamansi flavoured sparkling water, sweets, sorbet and cocktails – you’ll never go back to lime when you’ve tried it.

Calamansi Christmas Margarita

Ingredients

Makes 4

• 200ml Casamigos Reposdado Tequila
• 60ml Manzanilla Sherry
• 100ml Calamansi honey (to make the Calamansi honey, blend 2 parts Calamansi Puree with 1 part Acacia honey)
• 60ml lime
• Tajun, to garnish – a Mexican spice, available in Waitrose

Equipment

• Cocktail shaker
• Glass tumblers
• Ice cube mould

Method

1. Pour water into your ice cube mould and freeze overnight (or until completely frozen).
2. Add all of the ingredients above to a shaker. 
3. Shake well and pour through a strainer into a short glass. 
4. Pop out a few ice cubes and add them to the glass.
5. Garnish the rim of the glass with Tajin, a Mexican spice.

Recipe from wildflowersrestaurant.co.uk