Blood Orange Margarita

This Blood Orange Margarita recipe is sweetened with honey, and comes together in 5 minutes, with just 4 ingredients.

It wouldn’t be Foxes Love Lemons if I didn’t celebrate blood orange season with at least one recipe, so here we are.

I’ve actually been making blood orange margaritas for years (it’s not all lemon margaritas and brandy old fashioneds around here), but I haven’t actually shared my tried and true recipe here yet. I’m correcting that today.

What goes in a margarita?

The International Bartenders Association specifies that a margarita contain tequila (also the star of my tequila mojito), lime juice and Cointreau (a sweet orange flavored liqueur). But who says you need to follow this recipe strictly?

Cointreau is pretty expensive and I rarely keep it around. So instead, I generally add the sweetness to my margarita with either honey or simple syrup (like in my bourbon rosemary cocktail), and the orange flavor comes from, well, oranges!

Psst – buy a few extra oranges for orange honey chicken!

How to make a blood orange margarita:

Combine blood orange juice, tequila, lime juice and your sweetener of choice (preferably honey, see below) in a cocktail shaker and stir well. That’s it! Pour over ice for a margarita on the rocks.

How to sweeten a blood orange margarita:

In the interest of research, and bringing you the very best recipe possible, Jeff and I tested this Blood Orange Margarita with four different types of sweetener.

I know, I know, we’re selfless. Several slow cooker chicken burrito bowls may have been consumed in the process, too.

Here are the results of our test, in order from most favorite to least favorite:

1. Honey – we both agreed that this was, by far, the best sweetener for blood orange margaritas. The flavor of the honey really brought out the flavor of the oranges. It was sweet without being too sweet.
2. Simple Syrup – we made a classic simple syrup with 1 part sugar to 1 part water, warmed on the stove until the sugar dissolved. The resulting margarita was very delicious, with a sweetened yet neutral flavor. If we didn’t have honey around, this would be our choice!
3. Brown Sugar Simple Syrup – simple syrup made as mentioned above, only with brown sugar. The finished margarita had caramel and almost smoky qualities. But, we felt that this sweetener overpowered the flavor of the blood oranges.
4. Agave –  I like agave in certain recipes (like Agave Lime Lemonade), but I did not like the flavor of it in this margarita. It added a bitter quality which I wasn’t a fan of.

How to make frozen margaritas:

I really recommend serving this blood orange margarita on the rocks, because the flavor of the blood oranges is so special that I don’t love diluting it with little chunks of ice.

However, if you’re more of a frozen margarita person, you do you!

Add the ingredients for this margarita, plus 1/2 to 1 cup ice cubes (depending on how thick you want your frozen margarita) to a blender and blend until slushy.

How to make a virgin blood orange margarita:

The obvious answer here is – just omit the tequila!

As somebody who really enjoyed a well-crafted mocktail during pregnancy (I would often make grapefruit vodka cocktails with rosemary, just without the vodka), it’s important to garnish the virgin margarita the same way as a traditional one. Don’t forget to salt or sugar that rim for your non-drinking friend.