A Google search will tell you that a basic margarita recipe is tequila, lime juice, and triple sec, but when you Google search “Rio’s margarita recipe” – there are a few theories that come up:

“There’s definitely Apple juice”

“Everclear is added to make it so strong”

“A specific brand of lime juice”

While these are all pretty good guesses… none of them are actually accurate! 

Here’s the scoop on our legendary margaritas:

Our margarita recipe is 100% top secret – the mix is not even made in-store any more so our staff doesn’t even know what’s inside!

As the largest purveyor of Jose Cuervo in the nation, we’re honored to say we serve about ONE MILLION margaritas a year across the company – and each marg definitely contains the basic ingredients of Tequila, triple sec, and lime… but that’s all we’re sharing. ;) 

The legendary status of the Rio margarita comes from the potency – the whole reason we have a Limit 3 protocol. Each marg definitely has at least 3 ounces of booze – that means if you have 3 of any of our margaritas, you are having about 9 shots of hard alcohol! 

We didn’t think our margaritas would become so popular – especially once we repaired a broken ice cream machine to re-purpose it for serving the first frozen margaritas to Fort Collins! The “adult slushy” grew organically and became a phenomenon in Northern Colorado starting in 1986. To this day, 33+ years later, we have yet to change or even tweak the Classic Rio Margarita Recipe. The legend lives on – and that’s why Tequila is the Spirit of the Rio.