How to Make the Tequila and Mezcal Cocktail

The Cobra Clutch is the best tequila drink you’ve never had. Unless, of course, you have had it. Have you? Tequila and mezcal, pineapple and lime, a rinse of absinthe and some mint—sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This is part of the magic of this drink. Some cocktails are so good, their flavor profiles so foundational, they feel like an old friend, even if you’ve never met.

To be a crowd-pleasing drink you have to be a lot of things, and “delicious” is just one of them. The flavors need to be resonant. It needs to vibrate out of the glass. It can’t be too basic, because cocktails are partially about novelty and discovery. At the same time, if it only works with a couple very specific and esoteric ingredients (like, say, the Up in Smoke or the Gunshop Fizz) it could be your favorite drink you’ve personally ever had, but as far as popular adoption is concerned, it will always be stuck in third gear.

The Cobra Clutch is the opposite of this, so elemental it’s practically a vibe. I’ve made this drink hundreds of times and never once has it been turned away, turned back, or anything less than enthusiastically embraced by whoever I gave it to. If you had some kind of cocktail genie and wished that your Margarita could be tropical, there’d be a poof of purple smoke and the Cobra Clutch is what would appear in your hand, the platonic ideal of the tiki side of tequila and mezcal and as far as I’m concerned, deserves to be up there with the Margarita and the Paloma as expressions of the tequila’s best self. 

As a beachy tequila drink, it does make sense that the Cobra Clutch would come from San Diego. Christian Siglin is among the most talented bartenders in the city and in 2013 had just left a flashy cocktail palace to take over the bar of a neighborhood restaurant called Bankers Hill Bar & Grill. The restaurant was obviously more conservative and with an older clientele than the buzzy hotspot he was used to, so when coming up with a cocktail featuring the (still relatively uncommon) mezcal, it seemed wiser to play it safe, to create something that demonstrated mezcal’s bold smoke but did so in a refreshing and accessible way.

The resulting cocktail is a showcase of balance and crowd-pleasing flavors. Mezcal’s smoky character can be polarizing, but Siglin not only splits it 1:3 with tequila, so the smoke is forced to use its indoor voice, but also diffuses it with pineapple juice, which (as with al pastor tacos or kalua pork) combines with the tropical fruit like a pleasant dream. Absinthe too can divide the crowd, but with just a rinse it folds into the mint and tequila’s pepper like it’s made for it. The Cobra Clutch’s great gift is that it allows you to flirt with these aggressive flavors but without any real sense of danger—it de-fangs them, subdues them, gets them to comb their hair and stand in line. It’s a crowd pleaser of the highest order and the best tequila drink you’ve never had, unless of course you have had it, but in either case should be the best tequila drink you have today.

Cobra Clutch

And all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with crushed ice. Briefly shake to incorporate the ingredients, then pour into a large rocks glass. Top with more crushed ice, and garnish with a mint sprig.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Tequila: Tequila should be blanco (unaged), and additive free. Beyond that it’s difficult to be too prescriptive because there’s so many other variables—for Margaritas I prefer the budget end of the spectrum, and here, while budget bottles like Real de Valle and Cimarron are very good, this cocktail is not afraid of a more expressive and dynamic tequila like newcomers Lalo or Cambio, or old favorites Don Fulano or Fortaleza. The earth and pepper you get from these more artisanal and small batch productions is much welcome amid the mezcal, absinthe, and mint.

Mezcal: This was originally made with Del Maguey’s Vida mezcal, which is still a great choice, as would be many others. Mezcal is here for smoke and weight, I wouldn’t use anything too rare or expensive.

Pineapple Juice: This is a case where I do advise fresh pineapple juice, even if I don’t insist on it. If you have the means to create or procure freshly juiced pineapple, you should do that thing—there’s a subtlety to fresh juice that I prefer when absinthe is involved—but if all you have is canned juice, by all means still make the drink.

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Lime Juice: Fresh, please.

Absinthe: Siglin himself uses either Vieux Pontellier or St. George, which is good advice. I’d recommend generally a verte (green) absinthe, which has more herbal firepower than its blanche (white) cousins.