Several bars in Mexico claim to have invented the margarita, most of them near the US border in the 1930s and 1940s, and the historians have wisely declined to choose between them. The name means daisy in Spanish, and the drink is probably a tequila version of an older family of cocktails called daisies. What matters is the formula: good tequila, fresh lime and orange liqueur, sharply balanced.

Made properly, it is bright, tart and clean, nothing like the sweet slush it is often mistaken for. It belongs at the end of a Mexico City race day, once the engines have fallen quiet and the conversation has not.

The salt rim

Ingredients

• 1 lime wedge for the rim
• 2 tablespoons flaky or coarse salt

The cocktail

Ingredients

• 2 oz (60 ml) blanco tequila
• 1 oz (30 ml) orange liqueur
• 1 oz (30 ml) fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) agave syrup
• ice cubes

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