Mixing Beats and Drinks: Top Cocktail Recipes for Music Lovers

Music and cocktails often go hand in hand. Whether you are crafting the perfect playlist for an evening event or just looking to listen to some good music and sip a drink after a day of work, you can gain a lot from pairing the two more intentionally.

Here are some fantastic cocktail recipes to pair with your favorite music.

How to Pair Cocktail Recipes with Music Genres

Pairing cocktails with music is tricky to learn, but the good news is you don’t need any experience to start. It’s all about finding what you’re in the mood with and mixing the senses to create a unique experience. Anybody can do that, and you develop tastes and preferences as you go. It’s extremely low stakes!

You can also get creative. While you could pair a smokey whiskey, neat, with your favorite jazz artist, you might find a Mexican Mule gives a song an entirely different feel. That feel might be what you’re going for, or it may not fit your mood.

There are always three components in pairing music and cocktails: the mood you want to create, the flavor profile you want to taste, and the music you want to listen to. Striking a balance between these three components will create some very unique experiences.

Making Great Cocktails at Home

Anybody can make great cocktails with a few basic tools. The great thing about making cocktails is how easy it is. It doesn’t take long, and there are only a few ingredients in any recipe. You won’t have every cocktail ingredient in your home, but most ingredients are bought in smaller quantities. That means you can take one trip to the liquor store, buy many different ingredients and still not break the bank.

Beyond your ingredients, it’s as simple as following a recipe. The fancy bar tools you see are mostly used to create a different texture in the cocktail. They’re very fun to experiment with but not necessary for most basic cocktails. All the measuring of ingredients should be accessible with everything you already have in your house.

Cocktail Recipes You Can Try

Mixing beats and drinks is all about getting creative and experimenting, but you may still need a place to start. We picked three simple recipes that you can pair with specific genres.

Try these, then go off the rails and try something new!

1. Música Mule

The Mexican Mule is a classic twist on the Moscow Mule. The Mexican Mule is a timeless version utilizing tequila instead of vodka. This is the basic recipe:

• 2 ounces of Música tequila (Reposado or Blanco)

• ½ ounces of fresh lime juice

• 4 ounces of ginger beer

• Lime wedge as a garnish

There’s nothing particularly challenging about this drink, you just pour the ingredients into a glass with ice in it and stir. Still, the Mule is a great starting point because of how versatile it is. You can buy your basic ingredients, then experiment a ton on just this one drink.

You can change out the tequila for almost any other liquor you could imagine and still have a great cocktail. The Gin-Mule is delicious, a Moscow Mule is the drink you know and love with vodka, a Jamaican Mule uses rum, and a Kentucky Mule uses Bourbon or Whiskey.

You can also use different ginger beers or even make your own. It really isn’t too challenging!

With your classic Mexican Mule, however, our recommendation is to start with music that is lighter and more upbeat. If you’re wanting to play through the weekly top 50 songs or listen to some Folk, Funk, or EDM, a Mexican Mule will pair perfectly with these genres. From there, you can begin to experiment with your glassware or copper mug, or even change the spice level that varies drastically between different ginger beers.

2. Música Margarita

You already know and love the Margarita, but you may not know how easy it can be to make one. We recommend keeping the ingredients simple and natural. Try this simple recipe and branch out as far as you desire:

• 1 ½ ounces of Música Blanco tequila

• 1 ounce of Grand Marnier or Cointreau

• ¾ ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice or pineapple juice

• Ice

• Tajin or salted rim, if desired

• Lime or orange wedge

• Optional:

  • Simple syrup to taste

  • Fresh Fruit

While you’ll see many people make their margaritas in a shaker, you really don’t need to use one if you don’t have it. Take a tall glass or shaker, drop your liquid ingredients in, and shake or stir vigorously. Shaking will produce the most well-blended cocktail, but stirring is completely acceptable if you don’t have a shaker.

If you want to salt the rim of your margarita, all it takes is cutting a lemon wedge, wiping it on the rim of your glass, and dipping the rim into a plate of salt.

Then, fill your glass with ice and strain your margarita into the glass. You want to shake or stir with ice first because a margarita needs to be cold. While you’re chilling your ingredients in the ice, however, you’re melting the ice to cool off the ingredients.

There will always be some water that melts into the mixed ingredients, but you can minimize the melting by quickly chilling the ingredients, then straining your liquid into your glass with fresh ice. This causes much less melting to occur and is part of the reason why shaking is preferred if you can do it. A shaker cools a drink significantly faster and thoroughly mixes everything inside.

To pair with your margarita, try listening to Latin music or more traditional Mexican genres like ranchera, corrido, and mariachi. This will give you a very traditional experience, but you could also listen to your favorite country or indie rock artist.

You can also put many simple twists on your classic margarita. A Tajin rim is a fan favorite, basil leaves make a fantastic garnish, and you can even add orange juice for a very different experience. To start branching out even more, the smoky notes of a great mezcal can also drastically change the cocktail.

3. Old-Fashioned Música

The Old Fashioned is a fantastic drink to have in your arsenal for when you want to switch it up and try this spin on the traditional with a whiskey-based cocktail. You might not even realize how easy they are to make. Try out this classic old-fashioned recipe:

• 1 teaspoon of sugar

• 3 dashes of Angostura bitters

• 1 teaspoon of water

• 2 ounces of Música tequila (Añejo, Reposado or Blanco)

• Garnish with an orange slice or twist

• Optional: large ice cube

You start with your sugar or sugar cube into a mixing glass, add your bitters, and finally the teaspoon of water. You stir these ingredients until the sugar is completely dissolved, then you add your ice, bourbon, stir, and strain into your glass with a single large ice cube if you have one. After adding your garnish, you’re ready to sip! If you want to slice an orange for your garnish, you can do that, or you can use a peeler to peel some of the orange skin off and twist it to make an “orange twist.”

The thing about the old-fashioned is how many of these steps you can change. You can swap out the sugar for a simple syrup, add orange bitters to pull out some more of the fruity flavors. You can also change your sweetener to any other sweet syrup you have. Maple syrup works very well, but you only need a little bit.

An old-fashioned also pairs so well with so many types of music. Jazz is a favorite, but you could always go with a smokier vibe and play some of your favorite rock music, or chill out with some blues, reggae, or hip hop. Heavy metal also makes for a surprisingly fun pairing.

Taking Your Cocktails Up a Notch

One thing you can try to make some truly creative cocktails is to try infusing. To infuse a liquid, you add ingredients to it for a period of time, then strain them out. You can infuse all kinds of things, from your liquor to your simple syrup. This allows you to change the flavor of your ingredients without adding new ingredients. For example, you can buy dried oranges at the grocery store. If you fill a mason jar with the oranges or pineapples, then add some Música tequila, you can infuse that in your fridge for three days, then have an orange-flavored tequila to add to your margarita.

You could also try choosing more sustainable ingredients to create a different experience. If you’re planning an event, people love to support drinks or artists that are intentionally giving back to their communities or causes that are important to them. Thinking through these aspects can create completely new experiences that make people love their time spent even more.

While we mentioned many genres, curating playlists is the best way to take your cocktails up a notch. When you’re starting out, listening to lots of different types of music is expansive. It creates many different emotions within you and allows you to experiment as much as you’d like. When you really begin to hone your skills and preferences, however, fully curating a playlist lets you dial in your experience and create exactly what you’re looking for.

Plan Your Next Music Night with a Cocktail

Planning a night to sip handmade cocktails and listen to your favorite music is such a great experience. If you’re planning one and not sure where to start, try out Música Tequila in your next margarita.

Música Tequila supports music education through the Save the Music Foundation and local artists. We truly believe that music and drink are two of the most special things you can share with others. We’d love to be a part of your next great experience.