The Absolute Worst Drink You Could Ever Mix With Tequila

As versatile as tequila is — equally at home in soda water, a vibrant bloody Mary, or the perfect margarita — it has its stranger bedfellows, too. This is not to say that you should abandon your unorthodox signature mix, but, as vast and varied as all the world's many booze combinations are, it can help to keep some rudimentary guidelines in mind. 

To find out what you should avoid mixing with tequila, Chowhound tapped Chris Furtado — an area manager at Infinium Spirits, which distributes Tequila Corralejo. He shared a tipple tip that could save any imbiber of this spirt from disaster. "From a physiological perspective, I would say stay away from mixing energy drinks with any spirit, " Furtado said. "I'm not a doctor, but combining a depressant (alcohol) with a stimulant (energy drink) is not a good thing for your body." 

While combining energy drinks with tequila can be dangerous, it's also not usually a great flavor combination. Plenty of energy drinks skew a bit medicinal and could obscure a liquor's expected flavors with chemical qualities. Still, even if it's not for us, Furtado said anything could go with tequila based on taste alone. "From a flavor perspective, I would say try what you like; you never know what you will find," he said.

All of those zesty margaritas, palomas, and tequlia sunrises and sunsets are terrific, but there are plenty more cocktails that every tequila lover should know. The Rosita, for example, eschews the usual squeezed fruit juices to create a perky drink that some equate to the Negroni. To create this cocktail, combine equal parts tequila, Campari, bitters, and sweet and dry vermouth, then stir with ice and serve with an optional lemon twist. An Oaxaca Old Fashioned, on the other hand, swaps its titular antecedent's bourbon with tequila, and brings together a splash of mezcal with bitters and agave nectar.

For anyone lamenting the energy drink mixture that Furtado cautioned against, you can still give your tequila some caffeine pep with a can of coffee. Served hot or iced, you can turn this combination into a Mexican coffee, which swaps its Irish cousin, whiskey, with tequila, and is then mixed together with a liqueur like Kahlua. For a similar jolt, tequila also performs nicely in lieu of the standard vodka in a classic espresso martini. As Furtado said, whatever you want to pair tequila with is up to you — just think twice before picking up an energy drink.