Spicy Mango Margarita Pitcher

The pitcher margarita has a bad reputation because most of them are made from sour mix. Built from actual limes and actual fruit, it is as good as the single-glass version and considerably better than what most bars pour, and one pitcher covers ten people in the time it takes to make two drinks by hand.

Heat is the part to control rather than guess at. Jalapeño steeped in the mix keeps getting hotter the longer it sits, so the slices go in for a timed window and then come out. Fifteen minutes gives a warm hum, thirty a real kick. Leave them in through the afternoon and you will have something nobody at the party can drink. Taste at fifteen minutes and decide from there.

Frozen mango is the right choice, not a fallback. It is picked ripe and frozen immediately, it is consistent year-round, it costs a fraction of fresh mango outside the tropics, and it chills the pitcher as it blends. Fresh mango is better only in the few weeks when good ones are actually cheap.

Spicy Mango Margarita Pitcher

A pitcher of blended mango, lime, and tequila with jalapeño steeped to your own heat level and a chili-salt rim — ten margaritas without anyone touching a shaker.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 0 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Course Drinks

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 10 drinks

Ingredients

  

• 4 cups mango chunks frozen, thawed, about 20 ounces
• 1 1/2 cups lime juice fresh, about 12 limes
• 2 cups blanco tequila 100 percent agave
• 3/4 cup orange liqueur triple sec or Cointreau
• 1/2 cup agave syrup or to taste
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 jalapeños thinly sliced, seeds left in for more heat
• 2 tablespoons chili-lime seasoning such as Tajín
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 lime cut into wedges for wetting the rims
• 6 cups ice for serving
• 10 lime wheels for serving

Instructions

 

• Blend the thawed mango with the cold water until completely smooth. Frozen mango blends thick, so thaw it first or the mixture will not pour.
• Pour the mango purée into a large pitcher and stir in the lime juice, tequila, orange liqueur, agave syrup, and salt.
• Taste now, before any heat goes in. Mango sweetness varies, so adjust with agave if it is sharp or with an extra squeeze of lime if it is flat.
• Add the jalapeño slices and start a timer. Taste at 15 minutes for a warm background hum; go to 30 minutes for a genuine kick.
• Strain out the jalapeño as soon as it reaches the heat you want. Left in, it keeps extracting and the pitcher will be undrinkable by the second hour.
• Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. A cold pitcher means less dilution once it hits the ice.
• Mix the chili-lime seasoning with the kosher salt on a small plate. Run a lime wedge around the outside rim of each glass and roll it in the mixture — rimming the outside only keeps the seasoning out of the drink.
• Fill the glasses with ice, pour, and finish each with a lime wheel.

Notes

This is the one place not to buy the cheapest bottle. Anything labeled only “tequila” rather than “100 percent agave” is cut with up to 49 percent other sugars, and it shows up as both a harsh flavor and a worse morning. The least expensive 100 percent agave blanco on the shelf is the right buy.

Triple sec at eight dollars does the same job here as Cointreau at forty. In a pitcher with mango and lime, no one can pick it out.

Frozen mango is usually two to three dollars for a 16-ounce bag and is better than the underripe fresh fruit sold most of the year.

Buy limes by the bag and juice them all at once. Twelve limes sounds like a lot until you realize the bag costs about what four loose ones do; leftover juice freezes in an ice cube tray.

Make your own chili-lime rim for pennies: 2 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, and the zest of a lime, rubbed together.

The steeped jalapeño slices are still good. Rinse them and put them on tacos or a sandwich rather than throwing them out.

Make it alcohol-free: replace the tequila and orange liqueur with 2 cups of cold water, 1/2 cup of fresh orange juice, and an extra 2 tablespoons of lime juice. Keep the jalapeño steep and the chili-lime rim — heat and salt are what make an alcohol-free margarita taste like a cocktail rather than like mango juice.

Serving note: 2 cups of tequila plus 3/4 cup of orange liqueur across 10 servings is about 2 1/5 ounces of spirit each, a little over one standard drink. This one is stronger than it tastes.

Keyword big-batch cocktail, mango margarita, party drink, spicy margarita