Name: Rum Margarita Cocktail
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 2 oz White Rum; 1 oz Orange Liqueur; 1 oz Lime Juice; Kosher Salt (rim); Lime Wedge or Wheel (garnish)

Our refreshing Rum Margarita is a fun play on the traditional Mexican cocktail made with tequila.

Our quick & easy drink recipe features premium white rum, Cointreau orange liqueur, fresh lime juice, salt rim and lime slice garnish.

We love serving this tasty margarita in the summer. On a hot day it’s a truly refreshing boozy beverage perfect for rum lovers!

Save this story to Pinterest!

Save our Rum Margarita Cocktail recipe to Pinterest!

Table of Contents

What Is a Rum Margarita?

A margarita is a Mexican cocktail consisting of tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice often served with salt on the rim of the glass. The drink is served shaken with ice, blended with ice, or without ice.

According to cocktail historian David Wondrich, the margarita is related to a popular Mexican drink, the Daisy (margarita is Spanish for daisy), remade with tequila instead of brandy. Daisies are a family of cocktails that include a base spirit, liqueur, and citrus.

It became popular during Prohibition as American residents travelled to Mexico for alcohol. There is an account from 1936 of Iowa newspaper editor James Graham finding such a cocktail in Tijuana, years before any of the other margarita creation myths.

One of the earliest stories is of the margarita being invented in 1938 by Carlos “Danny” Herrera at his restaurant Rancho La Gloria, halfway between Tijuana and Rosarito. He apparently created it for customer and former Ziegfeld dancer Marjorie King, who was allergic to many spirits, but not to tequila. This story was related by Herrera and also by bartender Albert Hernandez, acknowledged for popularizing a margarita in San Diego after 1947, at the La Plaza restaurant in La Jolla.

If you’re looking for fun and tasty new ways to enjoy the classic Mexican cocktail try making our refreshing Rum Margarita!

Rum Margarita Cocktail Recipe Ingredients

Our homemade Rum Margarita cocktail is made with fresh and premium ingredients:

Rum: we suggest using Bacardi, Diplomatico or Havana Club.
Orange Liqueur: use Triple Sec or Cointreau to add a luscious orange flavour to the drink.

Lime Juice: we always suggest juicing fresh limes as you’ll taste the difference. Do not use store bought lime juice!
Salt: we suggest decorating the rim of your cocktail glass with kosher salt.
Lime Slice: garnish the cocktail glass with a fresh lime slice or dehydrated citrus wheel.

A Rum Margarita is made with rum, Cointreau, and lime juice.

Rum Margarita Recipe Tips

This cocktail recipe is easy to make at home, ready to serve in under 5 minutes.

We love serving our Rum Margarita recipe in the hot summer months. The refreshing rum drink is a crowd pleaser at garden parties, family barbecues and cottage cocktail hours.

Our Rum Margarita recipe serves one person. If you’re hosting a large gathering feel free to multiply the ingredients by the number of guests and muddle the drink in a punch bowl or jug rather than a cocktail shaker.

We’ve made this drink with a salted rim but if you don’t like salty beverages you can skip this step.

We like to make a Rum Margarita with Bacardi Superior.

Travel to Taste the World’s Best Rum

There’s no better way to declare yourself a Rum Margarita expert then by traveling the world to visit the best rum distilleries.

The world’s best rums are produced in the Caribbean and Latin America and can be divided into 3 styles based on the local language:

English-Speaking: areas are known for darker rums with a fuller taste that retains a greater amount of molasses flavour and include Bahamas, Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines.
French-Speaking: areas are best known for their agricultural rums, produced exclusively from sugar cane juice and include Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Spanish-Speaking: areas of the former Spanish Empire traditional produce añejo rums that are smooth in taste and include Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

We’ve had the opportunity to visit rum distilleries on a road trip of Jamaica, on a tour of Havana and a museum experience in Puerto Rico with Bacardi.

Most rum distillery tours allow guests to see the raw sugar cane arrive into the production area, offer an explanation on the distilling process and finish with a tutored tasting. Some distilleries even have a cocktail bar where you can sip classic rum drinks like a daiquiri or Rum Margarita.

You can serve a Rum Margarita with a salted rim like the classic Mexican tequila cocktail.

Best Bartender Tools & Cocktail Equipment

Before hosting a swanky Rum Margarita soiree you’ll need to ensure you have the best bartender tools and cocktail equipment.

Cocktail Kit: cocktail kits are the perfect gift for newbie mixology fans as they include basic bartender tools like a jigger, shaker and spoon.
Cocktail Shaker: a bartender’s best friend. Purchase a premium cocktail shaker to muddle or shake up your favourite pink gin cocktails.
Cocktail Glassware: make sure your bar is stocked with a selection of unique glassware to show off your favourite cocktail creations.
Hawthorne Strainer: this unique strainer features tightly wound coils and perforated holes. It keeps ice and other large ingredients like lime wedges in your cocktail shaker rather than in the glass.
Bar Spoons: slender and long bar spoons are a must-have when stirring drinks.
Bottle Opener: easily open bottles of beer or cider with the flick of your wrist or purchase a corkscrew for fine wine.
Pouring Spout: once you’ve opened a new bottle of gin insert these affordable pourers to make cocktail assembly a breeze.
Cutting Board: purchase a petite cutting board for your bar to slice garnishes or citrus wedges like lime, orange, lemon or grapefruit.
Ice Bucket: chill bottles of gin quickly in an ice bucket or keep by the bar when muddling gin mixers into cool creations.
Ice Crusher: fans of the Mint Julep love an ice crusher.
Ice Cube Kit: we suggest purchasing a selection of ice cube trays. Silicone styles are our favourite as they’re easy to clean and are available in various shapes and sizes.
Jigger: use a jigger to accurately measure spirits, juices, syrups and shrubs.
Juicer: invest in an electronic juicer or buy an affordable hand-held to easily juice fresh citrus like lemons and limes.
Muddler: fans of the Mojito love a sturdy muddler to mix mint and lime. Muddler’s are handy for any cocktail featuring ingredients that need a pounding like fresh herbs or citrus wedges.
Citrus Peeler & Zester: adorn your craft cocktails with a thick citrus peel or finer ribbons of lime or lemon zest.
Rimmer: Bloody Mary and Caesar lovers should outfit their bar with a handy rimmer for salting and sugaring glassware.

Best Selling Rum

Here are some of the world’s best selling rum brands, perfect for muddling into a refreshing Rum Margarita cocktail:

Havana Club: is Cuba’s most famous rum brand, originally created in 1934. If you’re visiting Havana on holiday we highly suggest taking the Havana Club tour to learn more about the history of rum production on the island and evolution of the mojito.
Bacardi: the world’s best selling rum was founded in 1862 in Cuba. The company moved to Puerto Rico due to the revolution and today tourists can visit the Cathedral of Rum in San Juan for the ultimate mojito experience.
Appleton Estates: is a sugar estate and distillery in Jamaica that has been handcrafting rums since 1749. They produce a wide variety of aged rums, as well as standard gold and white rums.
Captain Morgan: is a brand of flavoured rums named after the 17th-century Welsh privateer of the Caribbean, Sir Henry Morgan.
Mount Gay: is a rum produced in Barbados, and dates back to 1703, making it the world’s oldest comercial rum distillery.
Goslings: is a Bermuda-based brand famous for blending and distributing quality rum. Goslings Rum is famously the main ingredient in the Dark & Stormy cocktail.
The Kraken: is a Caribbean black spiced rum named after the mythical squid-like sea monster. The premium rum product is produced in Trinidad and Tobago.
Diplomatico: is a premium rum produced in the Andes Mountains in Venezuela.
Lamb’s: first launched in 1849 and today is made with rums produced in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.
El Dorado: is a premium rum produced in Guyana.

Garnish the glass with a lime wedge or dehydrated citrus wheel.

You May Also Enjoy These Rum Cocktail Recipes…

Dark Rum Manhattan Cocktail

Now you're an expert on how to make a refreshing Rum Margarita cocktail recipe! — Now you’re an expert on how to make a refreshing Rum Margarita cocktail recipe!

How To Make A Rum Margarita Cocktail

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote