Why do margaritas have salt on the glass

The overall winner, with results that looked and tasted almost as good as sea salt for a fraction of the price, was good old kosher salt, which just so happens to be the kind that most margarita recipes call for. If you really want to fancy up your margarita, you can experiment with using a flavored salt to garnish the glass rim. Punch supplies several chef-created salt recipes, including one with grapefruit zest, fennel, and minced habanero and another with crushed plantain chips and taco seasoning.

Betty Crocker offers a slightly more conventional recipe calling for powdered ancho and chipotle chiles, while Supercall showcases flavored margarita salts made with sriracha, dried blueberries, or lemon zest and rosemary. You could even, if you must, jump on the unicorn food trend just a few years after the vanguard by using food coloring to dye your margarita salt in pretty pastel colors.

Get as creative as you like, as long as you keep the salt. It's not just there for decoration — salt really is an integral part of the whole margarita experience. What salt does for a margarita Shutterstock. How to salt your margarita rim Shutterstock. On a chemical level, research shows that the sodium ion in the sodium chloride molecule NaCl is responsible for dampening bitterness.

Interestingly, the reverse is not true - when bitter compounds are added to salty ones, the level of saltiness does not noticeably change. Additionally, even tiny amounts of salt increase the flow of saliva, which makes the drinks feel slightly richer and thicker. At these levels, the ingredient has a bonus effect: enhancing sourness. Many bartenders have begun adding a few drops of saline solution to citrusy drinks to enhance or brighten the flavor.

For the beloved margarita, adding a small amount of salt screens out the slight bitterness of the Cointreau or triple sec. We recently had a bartender tell us that she likes to add a couple drops of saline solution to Cynar, an artichoke amaro. We tried it, and it brings the sweet notes of the liqueur to the forefront of your palate. Finally, salt enhances the overall flavor of cocktails.

Though the scientific investigation is ongoing, salt supposedly stimulates your gustatory receptor cells, which make up your taste buds. Skip to main content Drink. A margarita is a Mexican cocktail made by blending tequila with lemon, lime or other fruit flavors and can be served shaken with ice, straight up without ice or frozen.

Before pouring the finished cocktail into a glass, the rim is rubbed with a lime wedge and dipped in salt. That enhances the flavor, but it also drives up the sodium content of a cocktail that wouldn't ordinarily have much of any. The amount of sodium in a margarita can vary greatly. One thing that influences how much sodium the cocktail contains is the size of the glass. If the circumference of the glass is large, it'll have more sodium around the rim than a smaller glass.

The amount of juice rubbed around the rim will also influence how much sodium the drink contains. A liberal rubbing of juice will attract more salt than a quick rub around the rim. According to the Jose Cuervo website, a margarita recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of salt, which contains 2, milligrams of sodium.