Olive Garden Italian Margarita — The Amaretto Shot Is Half the Drink

On the menu, the Italian Margarita is a silver tequila margarita (Olive Garden lists Jose Cuervo Especial Silver) made with triple sec and amaretto. It arrives on the rocks in a large stemmed glass with a sugar rim, not salt, plus a small shot of amaretto on the side. The server will usually tell you to pour the shot in before you drink, and that’s how most people have it.

Reviewers have reported it at about $7.50, which puts it at the top of Olive Garden’s fairly affordable cocktail list. Prices vary by location, though, and Olive Garden doesn’t publish one national drinks price, so treat that as a ballpark.

Olive Garden doesn’t publish an official ounce-by-ounce spec, and we’re not going to pretend we have one. What follows is a ratio built to taste like a well-made version of the restaurant drink.

The typical online copycat is tequila, amaretto and a big pour of bottled margarita mix. The result is sticky. Amaretto is already very sweet, bottled sour is very sweet, and there’s nothing in the glass to cut either one.

Two fixes solve it:

1. Fresh lime, and plenty of it. A full ounce of lime juice gives the almond something to push against.
2. A splash of orange juice. It sounds odd, but orange is the bridge between triple sec (orange) and amaretto (almond-apricot). It rounds the drink the way the restaurant’s house mix does, without the syrupy finish.

Keep the in-shaker amaretto to half an ounce. The side shot carries the rest of the almond, and it’s more fun that way.

The sugar rim matters more than it looks. Salt and amaretto taste odd together; sugar makes the first sip taste like the restaurant version.

Shake hard. This is a sweet, fairly dense drink, and the extra water from a 12–15 second shake keeps it from feeling heavy. Strain over fresh ice so you don’t add a second round of dilution from half-melted shaker ice.

Then add the amaretto last. Poured over the top, it sinks slowly and streaks through the glass, so the first sips are sharper and the last ones are sweeter. That gradient is part of why people like this drink.

The Italian Margarita batches well for a pasta night. For eight drinks, stir together 12 oz (360 ml) tequila, 4 oz (120 ml) triple sec, 4 oz (120 ml) amaretto, 8 oz (240 ml) each of lime and orange juice, 4 oz (120 ml) simple syrup and 8 oz (240 ml) cold water. The water replaces the dilution you’d get from shaking. Chill it for an hour, pour over ice into sugar-rimmed glasses, and put a bottle of amaretto and some shot glasses on the table so everyone adds their own float.

Squeeze the citrus the day you serve. Lime juice tastes noticeably dull after about eight hours.

The zero-proof version keeps the two flavors that define the drink: agave and almond. An NA agave spirit covers the tequila. Orgeat, the almond syrup used in mai tais, plus a single drop of almond extract replaces amaretto. Orgeat is creamier and less sharp than the liqueur, so the mocktail tastes a little softer, but it’s still recognizably an Italian Margarita. Keep the sugar rim; it does a lot of work when there’s no alcohol to carry the flavor.

If you want a fizzier version, top the mocktail with an ounce of soda water. It brightens the drink and makes it last longer.

This is a pasta-and-breadsticks drink. The citrus cuts through cream sauces like Alfredo, and the almond is very good next to anything with garlic and butter. It also works as a brunch margarita when you want something sweeter than a classic.

Enjoy responsibly — must be 21+.

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