The Tastiest Mexican Cocktails to Make at Home

My love affair with Mexican cocktails began on an inauspicious morning. The face glaring down at me came into focus, along with a black Stetson, thick moustache, and hip holster. “I have a warrant to arrest Bill Carroll for drunk and disorderly conduct,” the cop said. Bill was my cousin, but long experience had taught me to avoid mentioning this. Even as kids, he attracted trouble like flies to stale beer in the Texas sun. My ravaged neurons slowly surfaced scenes from the previous night—Bill’s show, drinking tequila in a cantina near the border afterwards, then a blackout as dark and hazy as a Modelo Negro. 

“This is all a big misunderstanding. I need to get back to the Hilton El Paso.” 

An smirk crossed my interrogator’s face. “This ain’t El Paso, amigo. You’re in Juárez.” Then, an icy chuckle: “Not so funny now, is it, funny guy?”

I fumbled for my wallet and thrust my ID into his hands. “See? You’ve got the wrong guy.” He stared at my driver’s license for a long time. Sighing, I handed him the cash in my wallet. The cell door buzzed open, and I staggered out into the bright morning sun.

Trudging to the border checkpoint, I passed a street cart decked with bottles and remembered I had stashed emergency cash in my shoe. “Un cóctel, señor?” the girl sitting behind the tequila bottles asked. For God’s love, yes, señorita, I need a drink like a spider needs a fly. 

She poured a generous hit of Herradura Silver into a metal shaker, the smell of fine tequila and fresh lime slowly bringing me back to life. “Una paloma, señor,” she said, handing me a plastic cup. Call it the relief of narrowly escaping la cárcel, but it was the best cocktail I had ever tasted.

Nowadays, living in NYC, I whip up a paloma when I’m nostalgic for warmer climes and cowboy hijinks. Over the years, I’ve mastered a repertoire of other tequila and mezcal elixirs, too. Here are my favorite Mexican cocktails to make at home, libations to savor while listening to Maná records, reading Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, or laughing at YouTube videos of my wayward kin, Bill Carroll.