Is The Margarita Over?

Let’s be honest: a night out isn’t complete without a round of margaritas. We’ve loved them straight, spicy, skinny or frozen to such an extent that tequila sales, according to M&S, have been growing 50 percent year on year with little sign of slowing down. But bartenders and drinks experts are predicting that the tide may be turning on the sour cocktail we’ve loved so much, and the chokehold on tequila might be loosening. Has the margarita love finally reached the (1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila) floor?

Has The Margarita’s Moment Finally Passed? If So, What’s Next?

‘The margarita is, and forever will be, one of the world’s most beloved cocktails,’ says Tyler Zielinski, author of Tiny Cocktails and bar consultant. ‘I believe the margarita craze, though, was thanks to the influx of new agave spirits hitting the market. It was the same for the US market a decade ago, but Britons are now more likely to explore other types of tequila cocktails, such as the paloma or rosita.’

Zielinski’s point, then, is that drinkers are now well-used to the flavour profile of agave spirits thanks to the humble marg, and may be branching out. This is echoed by Zoe Burgess, author of The Cocktail Cabinet and drinks consultant at Atelier Pip, who believes the previously popular drink has primed up to look for our next ‘upper’ drink. ‘If you’ve been drinking margaritas for the past three years, I’m not sure how you still have the stomach for it,’ she says.

Tequila overtook gin as the British summertime spirit of choice for the first time this year, according to M&S’s summer trends report. (According to The Guardian, our previous go-tos had been vodka and gin.) And other agave spirits are also on the rise with no signs of slowing: the UK market for mezcal was estimated at USD 17.54 million in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 79.25 million by 2031.

Yet Burgess points out that most alcoholic spirits, tequila included, flit in and out of the public consciousness, and thus cycle. ‘Ten years ago, 50 percent of the top-selling cocktails were gin-based, which is not the case now,’ she explains. ‘I do wonder how long agave will rule the roost.’

For Max Venning, co-founder of Three Sheets, it’s unlikely that agave will go anywhere. ‘The spirit trend leads the drinks trend,’ he explains, ‘and agave is really hot right now and so too, in turn, will be margaritas and palomas.’ More likely, the bartenders predict that drinker demand for the margarita flavour profile will impact other drinks. ‘Maybe we’ll get tequila mojitos,’ says Venning. ‘Either way, I think there will be a boom in properly made mojitos again.’

A muscat grape and cinnamon caipirinha from Decimo by Zoe Burgess

Similarly, says Burgess, ‘we [at the Standard Hotel] have started testing out the caipirinha, as it’s like a marg: fruity, intense, full-bodied, and lime-based.’ She explains it’s the appeal of ‘familiarity’ splashed with a little exoticism. ‘From day one, the two variants I created for the Decimo menu went up into the top five selling drinks, and it’s stayed there since,’ she says. She is also ‘interested to see how the paloma evolves this year, and whether it stays close to the margarita or takes the lead.’

And another unlikely drink they feel will be impacted by the margarita drinker’s palate is the martini. Specifically, the tequila martini. ‘The best bartenders have been toying with these for a decade,’ says Zielinski, ‘though it’s no easy feat, as the cocktail combines punchy ingredients that need some taming to palatable. Very few get it right.’

His go-to pick is Amaro Bar’s Dec’s Martini, which he views as a drink that bridges a traditional and newfangled martini. ‘They haven’t reinvented the wheel with bespoke ingredients,’ he says, ‘but instead blended Boatyard Double Gin with mezcal and Cocchi Americano, finished with lemon oil.’

‘I think the agave martini does have legs for a certain type of agave lover,’ agrees Burgess, ‘the kind who is interested in tasting more of the agave’s flavour: ultimately a margarita hides a lot of its spirit.’ Likewise, she thinks it’s a hard drink to nail. ‘They’re not easy to balance. Bar teams have to figure that out before guests will connect with them,’ she says, ‘but I think mezcal martinis will happen more and more.’

Whatever the sole fate of the tequila martini, it speaks of a larger trend: category blurring. ‘Ultimately, despite how creative bartenders are, the top five best-selling drinks have remained the same across the past six years,’ says Burgess. ‘The heart of things stick.’

Paul Lougrat from A Bar With Shapes For A Name agrees. ‘The trend really is the merging of styles into one offering,’ he says, ‘different styles of hospitality are merging, i.e. pubs are serving proper cocktails, cocktail bars are serving draft beer. And ingredients are travelling across categories, matcha, for example, is no longer only part of the coffee world. So classic cocktails are more relevant than ever but with twists that bring originality, a spritz doesn’t have to be made with Aperol anymore.’ And, perhaps, a martini can be made with an agave spirit.

So what is the drink of the summer? Bartenders are floating a portfolio of powerful punches that largely hark back to the bright, citrus-led taste of the marg. If it is nearing its death knell, though, it seems likely that the ghost of its taste will certainly be hanging around for a while still, whether in a paloma, caipirinha, or twisted martini.