The short answer
A good batch margarita keeps the bright lime-and-agave balance of a built-to-order drink while letting you serve a crowd. The trick is acid and dilution: too sweet and it dies on the table, too sharp and nobody finishes the second glass. This page covers the single serve, the honest way to scale it to 10, 25 or 50 drinks, and what happens when a venue needs it to hold for a full service.
Ingredients
- 50 ml tequila (blanco)
- 25 ml fresh lime juice
- 20 ml orange liqueur
- 15 ml agave syrup (1:1 with water)
Method
- If serving with a salt rim, run a lime wedge around half the glass and dip it. Half a rim lets people choose.
- Combine tequila, lime, liqueur and agave in a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard and double-strain over fresh ice.
Pro tips
- Squeeze the limes yourself. Bottled juice loses the brightness that makes a margarita work.
- Batch on the drier side; ice and time soften the sweetness whether you want them to or not.
- Agave over sugar syrup keeps the mouthfeel clean and the finish crisp.
- Salt the rims before service starts, not per drink. It is the slowest step at volume.
Scaling it honestly: 10, 25 and 50 drinks
For 10 drinks: 500 ml tequila, 250 ml lime, 200 ml orange liqueur, 150 ml agave syrup. Stir, chill, serve over ice within the hour.
For 25 drinks: 1.25 liters tequila, 625 ml lime, 500 ml liqueur, 375 ml agave. At this size, juice the limes last and stir them in just before service. You will need around 20 limes, and a second pair of hands.
For 50 drinks: double the 25 batch, and now the logistics are the recipe. That is roughly 40 limes to juice, 6 liters of liquid to chill, and a service window of about two hours before the citrus starts to dull. Past this point most venues stop batching and start looking at draft.
Which tequila for a batch
Blanco is the classic call: clean agave, bright pepper, and it lets the lime lead. Reposado adds vanilla and oak that read as richness in a single glass but turn muddy across a big batch. If you want smoke, split the base 4:1 blanco to mezcal rather than going all in; smoke amplifies as a batch sits.
The lime problem
Lime juice is the margarita's engine and its clock. It peaks in the first few hours after squeezing, then oxidizes: the color browns and the flavor flattens from bright to bitter. For batches, that means juice last, chill hard, and never carry a citrus batch to a second day. It is also the reason a batched margarita program is hard to run across a long service, and why sealed, shelf-stable mix exists as a category.
The venue math
For a bar, the margarita is usually the highest-margin drink on the menu and the slowest one to build. On draft, the math is straightforward: a $155 Craft Standard keg plus roughly $81 of your own tequila is about $236 all-in, returns around 245 drinks, and at $12 a drink that is roughly $2,940 in revenue at a pour cost near 8 percent. A hand-built margarita program cannot match that pour cost, and it cannot match the speed either.
The batch version
To batch for roughly ten drinks: 500 ml tequila, 250 ml lime, 200 ml orange liqueur, 150 ml agave syrup. Stir, chill and serve over ice. The hard part at events is consistency and speed: by drink 40 the ratios drift, the line grows and the lime oxidizes.
On tap: the easier way
On tap, the keg removes the drift entirely. Craft Standard Margarita mix is made with natural juices and arrives pre-balanced; you add your tequila, connect to your existing beer line and pour about 245 identical drinks per 30L keg. Same margarita, every time, by anyone on the shift.
Skip the build. Put the Margarita on tap.
~245 identical serves per keg, poured at the speed of beer.
See the Margarita keg →Frequently asked
Tequila or mezcal for a batch margarita?
Blanco tequila for the clean classic. If you want smoke, split the base 4:1 tequila to mezcal; a full mezcal base gets louder and muddier as the batch sits.
How far ahead can I batch a margarita?
Mix the tequila, liqueur and agave up to a day ahead. Add the lime juice within a few hours of service; it oxidizes and dulls fast.
How many limes do I need for a batch?
Plan on one lime per 30 ml of juice. A 25-drink batch needs about 20 limes; a 50-drink batch about 40.
Why does my batch margarita taste flat by the end of the night?
The lime has oxidized and the ice has diluted the batch. Batch drier than tastes right at full strength, keep it cold, and stir citrus in as late as you can.
How many margaritas come out of a 30L keg?
Around 245 design serves at a 4 oz pour of finished cocktail into an 8 oz cup, before a small real-world line loss of 3 to 5 percent.
Does the on-tap margarita use real juice?
Yes. The mix is made with natural juices and is pre-balanced and shelf-stable before your tequila goes in.