If you’re used to drinking margaritas as large as a fish bowl, you might feel shortchanged by the skinny margarita, which cuts back on both the size and the sugar content in the concoctions served at some bars and restaurants. But you might be happy to spare yourself the plus-size guilt of imbibing a cocktail that contains as many calories as a cheeseburger.
Cut Calories
A skinny margarita contains about 180 to 200 calories, depending on the brand of the ingredients you choose and how carefully you measure them. Some margaritas contain twice as many calories, and others top the 700-calorie mark. The extra calories in some margaritas come from sugar-filled lemon-lime mix. The skinny margarita, which closely follows a traditional margarita recipe as prescribed by the International Bartenders Association, omits the mix. It contains tequila, orange liqueur and freshly squeezed lime juice, served with a wedge of lime in a salt-rimmed glass.
Calorie Breakdown
Most of the calories in a skinny margarita come from the tequila. The basic recipe calls for 2 ounces of tequila, which contain about 128 to 138 calories. You could save 59 to 69 calories if you use 1 ounce of tequila. The skinny margarita also contains one-half ounce of orange liqueur, which provides about 48 calories, plus five wedges of lime – four squeezed into the drink and one for garnish. The juice of a whole lime contains 11 calories.
Heart Health
The calories in tequila – or any kind of alcohol – are basically empty calories, meaning they provide little or no nutrition. Including a small amount of tequila in your diet might, however, improve your cardiovascular health. The American Heart Association recommends that women and men older than 50 consume no more than one serving of alcohol daily and that men younger than 50 drink no more than two servings. For tequila, a serving would equal 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor or 1 ounce of 100-proof tequila.
Vitamin C
If you squeeze the juice of a full lime into your skinny margarita, you will obtain about 13 milligrams of vitamin C. A woman needs at least 75 milligrams of vitamin C daily, and a man needs at least 90 milligrams. If you smoke, add about 35 milligrams to your daily total. But don’t try to reach your daily vitamin C requirement by drinking skinny margaritas – it would take six or seven drinks to reach the recommended amount.
References
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Nutrient Database
- Food.com: Skinny Margarita
- Good Spirits Mixers: A Skinny Margarita?
- The Daily Plate: Calories in Cointreau
- The Daily Plate: Calories in Jose Cuervo Tequila
- American Heart Association; "Alcohol and Cardiovascular Disease"; August 2011
- Harvard School of Public Health: Nutrition Source -- Vitamin C
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