Use Your Aperol To Upgrade This Classic Cocktail When Spritz Season Is Over

The Italian liqueur Aperol is quite often mixed with Prosecco and club soda to make a spritz garnished with an orange slice. The bright-orange liqueur offers notes of orange citrus with mildly sweet notes reminiscent of vanilla. Aperol is a bit bittersweet thanks to those flavor combinations and can be used in many other ways, like an Aperol snow cone. Another unlikely cocktail that can also benefit from the liqueur is the margarita, according to Saeed "Hawk" House, owner and bartender at Cocktails By Hawk LLC, which is also on YouTube.

"Since Aperol has a natural orange flavor note, I believe it can make a great cointreau substitute in margaritas," Hawk says. "Not only will it give the orange flavor profile, it will also add a slight bitter component to the margarita." In case you don't know, most margaritas contain cointreau or triple sec to offset the acidity of the lime juice with citrusy-sweet flavor. That means Aperol is an ideal replacement per House's guidance if you want the essence of orange in a margarita that's not overly sweet.

You can add Aperol to pretty much any margarita recipe, and it won't take much of the apéritif to enhance the flavor. For every margarita, just one ounce of Aperol should do the trick. Combine the Aperol with your favorite tequila, lime juice, and plenty of ice and shake the margarita like you normally would. Pour it over ice and consider a garnish of an orange slice to lean into the ingredient and the other cocktails it's often used with. For precise measurements, add the ounce of Aperol to our classic frozen margarita or orange-centric golden margarita recipes in place of the cointreau.

If you don't want to make a margarita, there's other tequila-based cocktails that Hawk thinks Aperol complements. "Another great use for Aperol would be in a Paloma," he says. Palomas use grapefruit juice, so the Aperol will lean into the citrus notes with the same flavors as in margaritas. To quench your thirst, add it to our zesty Paloma recipe and consider skipping the agave if you don't want your cocktail to be too sweet when you add the Aperol.