Iowa Newspaper Article Reveals Margarita's True Origin Story: It Started With Prohibition

An 89-year-old newspaper clipping from Iowa is helping rewrite the history of America's favorite cocktail. New research suggests the margarita, long claimed by competing bars and bartenders, actually traces its roots to the Prohibition era and the border towns where Americans crossed into Mexico for a legal drink.

The discovery comes from author John Damon, whose forthcoming book The Complete Guide to Mexican Beverages digs into the cocktail's murky past. Damon found that a 1936 Iowa newspaper article mentioned a Mexican bar run by an Irishman serving a drink called the tequila daisy, which is essentially the margarita under a different name.

What did the Iowa newspaper article say about the margarita?

The 1936 article, highlighted by celebrated cocktail historian David Wondrich, describes a bar in Mexico serving a tequila daisy. Since