Cocktails for National Tequila Day that use just THREE ingredients – plus a sale on an ‘unbeatable’ tequila

TEQUILA has spent the last decade quietly shaking off its slammer reputation in the UK, and the cocktail list has widened accordingly. Many recipes you’ll find online, though, assume an extensive home bar with a bitters collection and a selection of difficult-to-find liqueurs. El Mayor Blanco Tequila, £32.99 £27.50 at Amazon These three recipes don’t. Sign up for the Fabulous newsletter Thank you! Each one is three ingredients, plus ice, and the optional garnishes are genuinely optional. They come from El Mayor, a Jalisco distillery run by the Gonzalez family, whose “unbeatable” Blanco was named World’s Best Tequila at the 2024 World Tequila Awards. Three easy tequila cocktails to make at home Blueberry margarita em_cocktails_blueberrymargarita The build is 50ml El Mayor Blanco, 20ml lime juice and 20ml blueberry syrup. Shake it all with ice, then strain into a glass over fresh ice. Salt the rim if you like, and drop three frozen blueberries in. Blueberry syrup is the only thing here you probably don’t already own, and it’s worth checking the cordials aisle rather than the cocktail shelf, where the same thing costs about three times as much. Sparkling Paloma rosado_paloma_v2 This take on a classic is equal parts, making it the easiest of the three cocktails to remember at 10pm. It’s fifty millilitres each of El Mayor Reposado, grapefruit soda and cava, built straight into a balloon glass over ice. No shaking, no straining. Add a twist of grapefruit peel if you’ve got one, and if you haven’t, nobody will know. The Albatross Glass of cocktail with orange slice. Toned image The Albatross is the sipping option, and it’s essentially an Old Fashioned with the whiskey swapped out. Muddle a demerara sugar cube with three dashes of Angostura bitters in a mixing glass, add 50ml El Mayor Añejo and ice, then strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Orange peel over the top. It’s the one to make if you want something slow rather than something cold, and the Añejo — aged 18 to 36 months in white oak — is doing most of the work. El Mayor’s Blanco is the entry point at just £27.50 (down from £32.99), putting it below Casamigos and Don Julio without dropping into mixer-only territory. Amazon reviewers rate it 4.6 out of 5, and the recurring note is value rather than prestige: one five-star reviewer wrote that “on sale, this is unbeatable”, comparing it favourably on price with Patrón and Casamigos. The Reposado sits at £38.50 at The Whisky Exchange and the Añejo at £41.75, and it’s worth checking both retailers before you commit. Each of these drinks contains roughly two units of alcohol, so pace accordingly.