Breakfast Daisy

There’s a long-running tradition of cocktails that name-check the morning repast, including the “breakfast martini” prepared with orange marmalade (it’s not really a martini at all) and the breakfast daiquiris that my good friend Nicholas Jarrett and his then roommate Thomas Waugh used to make at their apartment in Williamsburg around 2009. In those days Clover Club and Death and Co. bartenders would make classic daiquiris with a splash of grapefruit at sunrise—or at least they liked to talk about it a lot. 

I wanted to evoke those early morning daiquiris with this riff on the margarita. Feisty enough to start your evening but created with brunch vibes in mind, this cocktail combines a subtly smoky mezcal with a classic breakfast tea. 

Margaritas spring from the classic cocktail family of daisies—drinks sweetened with a liqueur. The version everyone knows uses curaçao or orange liqueur, and while you still get a hint of the classic American breakfast fruit with the Earl Grey, the citrus liqueur in my daisy is my personal morning citrus favorite, grapefruit.