The margarita we make when someone at the table isn’t drinking

There’s a moment at every dinner party we host. Someone at the table isn’t drinking. Maybe they’re pregnant. Maybe they’re a year out from something hard. Maybe they’re three days into a marathon block and don’t feel like explaining. And the host pivots, awkwardly, to “do you want… a sparkling water? Or like, a juice?” That moment is the whole reason btrbuzz exists.

This margarita is what we make when we have someone like that at the table — and increasingly, that’s most of our dinners. It’s also what we make for ourselves, often, on a Tuesday when we want the ritual of a real drink without the cost. It tastes like a margarita. Tart, salty, dry on the back. Not sweet. Not apologetic. Not a juice box pretending.

YOU’LL NEED (MAKES 1)
• 2 oz non-alcoholic blanco tequila (we like the one from Lyre's Agave Blanco Spirit) • ¾ oz fresh lime juice — fresh, not bottled, this matters 
• ½ oz orange shrub or dry orange syrup (not triple sec — too sweet)
• 1 dash saline solution (¼ tsp salt in 1 tsp water — this is the trick)
• Flaky salt for the rim • Ice, big cubes if you have them
• A wide rocks glass

HOW Rub a lime wedge around half the rim and dip in flaky salt — half, not all the way, so every sip is your choice. Combine everything in a shaker with ice. Shake hard, fifteen seconds, until the outside frosts. Strain over a fresh big cube in the rimmed glass. Wedge of lime. That’s it. The saline is the move. It pulls the lime and the tequila-alternative forward and gives the drink the grip a non-alc cocktail usually misses.

Most of what people complain about with these drinks — that they taste “flat,” that something is missing — is salt. We’ve been pouring you undersalted drinks for years. Make one for the friend who isn’t drinking. Make one for yourself. Sit down at the same table with the same glass in your hand.
That’s the point