Bartending 101 - The Finest Margarita You'll Ever Have. Possibly

Whether the start of the night to liven things up, a pick-me-up after midnight or a great cocktail for with dinner, tequila is almost always the way forward in these situations.

If you're a bit mad.

I bloody love a good margarita, and if you want a true classic cocktail with a real punch you can't go wrong. This drink, in a word, is all about Bite.

There are countless ways and variations on a good margarita, but my best - and my favourite - is simplistic - straight up, healthy salt garnish, loads of lime and even more tequila.

Ingredients

50ml good silver or gold tequila. I'm a big fan of the 1800 range, and the silver has got a wonderful clean crispness to it that just finishes this drink beautifully.

20ml orange liqueur - Curacao, Cointreau or Grand Marnier. Basically, whichever's behind your bar. Marnier for the win though.

35ml lime juice - as usual, hand squeezed or fresh juice bottled pre-shift. Say it with me, fresher is always better! I know that's a lot of lime, but there's a lot of drink in here too, so balance is essential.

A little pinch of salt*

5-10ml Agave syrup - high-quality stuff if possible, but agave of any shape or form adds a wonderful sweetness to this without dulling the bite.

5-10ml water - just a little, to cut the sharpness ever so slightly. Not essential, but a nice touch.

Method

Chill your coupe glass - if you've got the time, wet the rim with a lime wheel, roll it around in a saucer of rock salt (black salt or Himalayan pink salt adds a weird and wonderful colour contrast), and throw it in the fridge while your making the drink to give it a bit of a chance to set. For the true artistes, batch off six of these pre-shift, and stick them in the freezer for an hour to create a proper candy-like coating on the glass. Proper nice.

All ingredients (as usual, juice first) into your shaker, give them a lovely hard shake until the shaker's frozen to your hand. I'd recommend, as with all martini style drinks, double straining your drink to make sure there are no unwanted shards of ice floating on the top of your beautiful drink. That's about it. Enjoy.

And please, for the love of all that is good and wholly, don't stick a lime wedge on the side. I think we can all agree we're better than that. Honour yourself and your craft.

Notes

-this is something of a hybrid of a classic margarita and a Tommy's margarita, the addition of agave to the latter being the major difference. Agave, being the fruit tequila is harvested and processed from, naturally lends its flavour to a tequila with no effort. It's an excellent way to add sweetness to a tequila-based drink without really affecting the flavour.