Ryan Castelaz and co-creator/bartender Zoe Lomenzo crafted a margarita that is everything you want it to be, except alcoholic. Nonalcoholic drinks are trending, to be sure, but in Castelaz’s hands, they seem classic. The tequila he uses here, he says, isn’t the one to do shots with. “If you’re sipping N/A tequila and your own favorite alcoholic tequila, they’re going to be worlds different. But put [the N/A version] in a margarita and they’re going to perform pretty similarly.” That said, you might think that whipping up a truly delicious N/A cocktail worthy of the margarita name is an easy lift. No, this took time and testing.
For the Counter Bar at Crossroads Collective (which closed in mid-2023), Castelaz and Lomenzo started with experimental drinks – “things that taste really, really, really good” but aren’t meant to replicate tastes people were already familiar with. This was because the products themselves were new to them. “It takes a greater degree of mastery” to create “canonic” nonalcoholic concoctions, he says. But that was then. This is now: The two have progressed to what they’re calling Counter Classics. “What the margarita symbolizes is really that step in the journey for us of starting to dive in and refine these nonalcoholic versions of traditional cocktails in a format that feels every bit as satisfying as a margarita. And we’ve actually had some people now who drink this [and] prefer it to the alcoholic ones. It feels like a margarita – grown up and sophisticated.” To Castelaz, it’s a “celebration” of where “the N/A space is and where we think it can go.”
The zero-proof tequila used here has a “gentle, kind of cayenne-esque spice,” plus the smokiness of mezcal and “that soft sweetness” of the blue agave syrup. The Dhos orange liqueur’s heavy sweetness is balanced by the orange bitters. Add to that an unexpected ingredient: fennel salt. (Find it on Amazon.) The salt “adds just a back finish of that herbaceous fennel that cuts through some of the smoke on the front palate.”
This recipe is a template, not a mandate. Add some raspberries from the garden, or fresh mint or passion fruit juice. It’s your drink, a kind of invitation to experiment.
