The Hack You Need To Know For Making Spicy Tequila

If you love spicy cocktails — or just want to impress your friends with your fancy DIY skills — you need to learn how to make spicy tequila. It's not complicated. If you have your sights set on spicy margaritas, there are several approaches: You can add heat to just the rim with a blend of hot pepper and salt; you can muddle peppers at the bottom of your cocktail or shake them into the other ingredients (per The Kitchn); you can even add a jalapeño to your simple syrup recipe. But The Kitchn's taste testers found the most satisfaction came from starting with straight-up infused spirits. In case that sounds like it's over your pay grade, it's not. Making infused spicy tequila is a cinch, better suited to your to-do list than your bucket list.

All you're doing is letting the natural heat of a hot pepper infuse your tequila. Due to the nature of high-proof alcohol and the characteristics of spicy peppers, there's not much to it: there is no heating or stirring, you're mostly just bringing the two together so that they can do their stuff. But you'll want to have some idea of how hot you want to go. There is a wide range of spiciness when it comes to peppers: A jalapeño is considered mild on the Scoville Scale, while a habanero is "very hot." 

To start, you'll need a bottle of 100% agave tequila (we recommend blanco or silver; you want something quality but without too much of its own assertive flavor), a fresh hot pepper or two, plastic gloves, and a cutting board –- though a little confidence and willingness to taste the fruits of your labor is an added bonus (per Chili Pepper Madness).

As a basic template, you can figure that 12 hours with two jalapeños in a 750 ml bottle of tequila will result in mildly spicy spirits (via The Kitchn). Increasing the number of peppers or their heat level will allow you to make quick work of your infusion, which also means fewer of the grassy-floral flavors of the peppers will come through if that's your preference. For some extra smoke alongside the heat, you can try charring your pepper first. A really spicy pepper like a habanero works fast, so if you're trying to whip something up for tonight's happy hour, that may be the way to go (per Serious Eats).

Once you've chosen your pepper, you can cut out the seeds if you want — deseeding makes it easier to strain (and also eliminates some of the heat since a lot is in the seeds). Using plastic gloves will keep you from getting "jalapeño hands" (burning your hands with the oils or transferring them to your eyes). Pour the tequila into a slightly larger container to accommodate the pepper — and let the fun begin! You may want to test your wares along the way to gauge their intensity; know that the most dramatic change in flavor happens in the first few hours and then the process slows down (via Cocktail Society). 

When you've gotten the tequila where you want it, pour it into a clean bottle or jar (the original bottle is fine, but you will have lost a little volume in the process). Throw a label on it, and get ready for your guests' enthusiasm (via Cocktail Society). "This spicy tequila? Oh, that's just a little afternoon experiment." Your ears will be burning, too, by the end of the evening.