Add Sweetness And Spice To Your Tequila Cocktails With This Elevated Simple Syrup

Tequila fandom can be a journey, from overdoing it on the cheap stuff when you're in college until you hate it to later learning the beauty of premium or artisanal varieties of the spirit. Reaching that final stage requires not only experiencing it on its own, but also experimenting with it in all kinds of cocktails — not just margaritas — and with all kinds of ingredients, not just limes. Making everything from a Oaxacan old fashioned to an el diablo with ginger beer highlights tequila's versatility. 

Then, you can really get creative with entirely new flavor profiles for your tequila drinks. When one of our resident mixology experts broke down 13 do's and don'ts of crafting tequila cocktails, we learned about a genius DIY syrup swapping plain old sugar for hot honey that brings an upgrade of both sweetness and spice. Simple syrup is a common way to balance a typical cocktail formula with sweetness. For example, margaritas belong to the daisy family of cocktails. 

Like the sour family, they combine a spirit with acidity and sweetness; think tequila, lime, and liqueur or simple syrup. But your syrup doesn't have to be, well, simple. Instead of just sweetness, DIY an elevated syrup with 2 parts hot honey, 1 part warm water. You'll get a richer, warmer sweetness, plus spice and a touch of heat. It helps you make the ultimate spicy margarita, and is delightful in everything from a paloma to a tequila hot toddy.

Hot honey syrup is a game-changer for your tequila cocktails. Just imagine how good that kick of spice would be in frozen margarita popsicles – accentuate the syrup's flavor with a sprinkle of Tajín at the popsicle's lime base. Use it to pop against margarita riffs, from apple cider twists to a hot-honey apricot marg. Add a splash of hot honey syrup to a smoky French 75 update with tequila to pair the smoke quality with spice, or to a spiced ranch water for just a hint of sweetness in the refreshing sipper. This syrup is only the beginning, too. Making flavored simple syrup is such a perfect, easy format for infusing any flavor you're after into your drinks. 

For a different balance of sweetness and spice, try making traditional simple syrup with granulated sugar but infuse it with jalapeño, habanero, cayenne, or gochugaru, or subtler spices like paprika, cinnamon, or ginger. You can also add one or two of these spices or peppers to maple syrup for a dynamic similar to the hot honey syrup: spicy, but deeply, richly sweet. You can really venture out and create more complex flavor profiles all within your syrup by adding more bright, tartly-sweet elements such as orange, lemon, or lime zest, or herbs like basil, cilantro, or mint. A jalapeño, lime, and cilantro syrup? Yes, please — all you'd need with that and tequila is a splash of bubbly soda water.