A gorgeous lemon margarita on the rocks made with sweet and tart meyer lemons and sweetened further with a rosemary infused simple syrup. The perfect cocktail to sip on with friends in the spring sun!
How gorgeous are these meyer lemon margaritas? So bright and airy and pretty. They have a strong lemon citrus flavor that’s sweetened just slightly by rosemary simple syrup giving them a small but distinct rosemary flavor. The combination is remarkably delicious and totally dangerous to your sobriety! And have I mentioned how pretty they are? And the fragrance is lovely.
I love how this lemon margarita is like a season crossover cocktail. From winter to spring with the rosemary representing the winter with its earthy pine fragrance and the meyer lemons representing spring with their bright crisp and slightly sweet flavor. I know, I’m a dork. Bring on the Spring!
This lemon margarita on the rocks recipe is soooo perfect to serve when you have guests because you can make them so dang quick. And the flavor is super easy to get perfect! Make the rosemary simple syrup and rim sugar/salt ahead of time and then juice the lemons just before your guests arrive. Then its a breeze to throw together. Both Debbie and I have had sooooo many compliments when serving this to guests, we know yours will love it too.
I have to tell you guys about our rim salt/sugar situation. We had the right idea to start with. We wanted to make a sugar and salt combo with lemon zest and a touch of rosemary for the rim of our cocktails. However, when we zipped it all up in the food processor, it got kind of moist and wasn’t really going to work for our glasses. So Debbie figured we should put it in the oven to dry it out. (Yep, that’s right, I’m throwing Debbie under the bus) But rather than dry out, the sugar melted and it became a hot goupy mess. BUT… rather than toss it and start again we decided to let it cool and then break it up and throw it back in the food processor to mulch up. Which soooooorrrt of worked, but certainly not how we hoped. We could barely get it stuck to the rim of our glasses. It did the trick eventually. But man, what an ordeal. Good thing it was so tasty!
So, what can you learn from this? Well… if when you make the rim salt/sugar for this cocktail, the rim garnish becomes a little on the moist side, just let it sit out and dry. Or throw it in a dehydrator for a little min. Do not try to dry it out in the oven!
But you should definitely make this it. Don’t let our little mishap deter you. Its sweet and salty and tart and earthy all at the same time and it’s the perfect complement to this lemon margarita on the rocks. Just do it the right way. 🙂
And then sip this lemon margarita and think of spring.
Tools to Make Your Lemon Margarita Even Easier
- Food Processor – super helpful for making cocktail salts and sugar rimmers, among other things… This is the one that Debbie and I have and we love it.
- Cocktail Jigger – every bar needs a proper measure!
- Glasses for Serving your sparkling margarita – we usually like to serve ours in stemless wine glasses, or in some pretty glasses like we have in our photos. They just look so pretty!
- These glasses are the coolest outdoor stemless wine glasses I have seen! Perfect for summer!
- These vintage glasses are super cool looking too! Love them.
Meyer Lemon Margarita with Rosemary Infused Simple Syrup
Ingredients
ROSEMARY SIMPLE SYRUP
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups water
- 1 big handful of rosemary sprigs
GARNISH
- 1 tbsp rosemary
- 1 tbsp coarse salt
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon zest
FOR THE COCKTAILS - Makes 2 Cocktails
- 2 oz fresh meyer lemon juice
- 4 oz tequila
- 4 oz water
- 1 oz rosemary simple syrup
Instructions
- First make the simple syrup. Place all the ingredients into a medium pot, bring to a simmer and cook until the liquid reduces in half and it gets thick and sweet.
- Next make the rim garnish. Place all the ingredients into a food processor and whiz it up. If it feels a little moist after, just spread it out on a dish and let it dry out a bit or put it in a dehydrator for a moment.
- Finally, make the cocktail. Run a lemon wedge around the rim of your glasses and dip them in the rim garnish. Then add the fresh lemon juice, tequila, water and rosemary simple syrup to a martini shaker. shake it good and pour into your glasses. You can also just pour the ingredients into the glasses themselves and stir well.
Nutrition
Use plain salt/sugar rim, but rub rim with yellow side of peel first – OR – zest lemons using microplane, spread on waxed paper to dry (in AZ about an hour) and you have dried lemon peel to mix with rim mix!