Ask a bartender in Guadalajara what “a Mexican drink” means. Then ask a home cook in Oaxaca. You’ll get two different answers. One reaches for tequila. The other reaches for a clay pot of atole. That’s the real shape of Mexican drinking culture. There are four distinct worlds: coolers, beer, agave spirits, and cocktails. They rarely overlap on the same table.
At La Casa Blanca in La Mesa, the drink menu tries to hold all four at once. A horchata sits next to a michelada. A mezcal flight sits next to both. This guide walks through each category. It points out which pairings get ordered together most often. It also flags the drinks that surprise people the most.
Non-Alcoholic Drinks: Coolers, Atoles, and Everything Poured Over Ice
Mexican non-alcoholic drinks split along temperature lines. Aguas frescas and raspados are built for heat. They’re thin, fruit-forward, and served over ice. Atoles and champurrado go the other way. They’re thick, warm, corn-based, and made for cold mornings. Neither family uses artificial sweeteners. Piloncillo, a raw cane sugar, does most of the work instead.
Agua Fresca
Blend fruit, water, and a touch of sugar. Strain it if you want it smooth. That’s agua fresca, the pitcher drink you’ll find on nearly every taco stand counter in Mexico. Watermelon, cucumber, and lime with chia seeds sell the fastest. Strawberries and guava come in close behind. Vendors thin the fruit with water instead of milk. That keeps the drink light enough to sit next to fried or spicy food without competing with it.
Agua de Jamaica
Steep dried hibiscus flowers, called flor de Jamaica, in hot water. Strain it, sweeten it, then chill it. That’s agua de Jamaica. Its sharp, cranberry-like tartness cuts through a plate of mole or fried tacos. The health claims around hibiscus aren’t just folklore, either. Researchers have found hibiscus tea may act as an antioxidant and help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, based on animal studies. A controlled human trial also tracked blood pressure in 65 adults with mild hypertension. Each drank three 240-mL servings a day. This is one of the few coolers on this list backed by real research, not just a pretty color.
Horchata
Soak rice. Blend it with cinnamon and vanilla. Strain it, then sweeten it. The result is a rice-milk drink most people call “dessert in a glass.” Some cooks fold in oats for extra body, or swap in coconut sugar. The basic method stays the same. Served iced, it’s often the first drink recommended to guests trying chilaquiles or tamales. The sweetness resets your palate between bites.
Licuados
Swap the water in a fruit shake for milk, and you get a licuado. It’s thicker than agua fresca, closer to a milkshake. Strawberry, mango, and banana are the most common bases. Order one alongside a spicy dish. The dairy cools your mouth better than plain ice water.
Atole and Champurrado
Thicken corn masa until it feels like thin oatmeal. Sweeten it with piloncillo, and you have atole. It shows up at breakfast tables next to a plate of tamales. That’s not just tradition. The starch-on-starch pairing simply works.
Add Mexican chocolate to the same base, and it becomes champurrado. This is the version most people order once the weather turns cold. Build a full breakfast around it with a traditional Mexican breakfast menu that already pairs tamales and chilaquiles the way a proper desayuno table would.
Mexican Hot Chocolate
Whisk cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar into hot water, not milk. The result tastes more bitter and more chocolate-forward than most people expect. That’s the traditional build. The creamy, milk-based version most Americans know came later.
Café de Olla
Simmer black coffee slowly with cinnamon and piloncillo in a clay pot. The long cook time softens the coffee’s bitterness in a way a drip machine can’t match. Served over ice, it’s called café de olla frío. It’s become one of the most requested drinks on hot afternoons, even among guests who came in for something stronger.
Sangrita
Mix tomato juice, orange juice, lime juice, and chile. That’s sangrita, a chaser meant to sit next to a shot of tequila or mezcal, never mixed into it. Sip the spirit, then the sangrita, back and forth. That’s the traditional order. Reverse it, and the whole experience changes.
Jarritos and Mexican Sodas
Jarritos uses cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. That’s the detail that sets it apart from most American sodas. Tamarind, mandarin, and hibiscus are the flavors that move fastest. Sidral Mundet (apple), Manzanita Sol, and Sangría Señorial are worth trying too, once you’re past the obvious pick.
Raspados
Shave a block of ice by hand. Mound it in a cup. Pour fruit syrup over the top. Add condensed milk if you want it sweeter. That’s a raspado. The hand-shaved texture is rougher and less uniform than a snow cone. That’s what sets it apart from anything made in a machine.
Regional Corn and Agave-Sap Drinks
Four regional drinks share a corn or agave base. They rarely travel outside their home states.
- Tejate: Blends maize and cocoa into a thick, chunky drink served over ice, almost only in Oaxaca.
- Pozol: Ferments corn dough lightly, then mixes it with water and cocoa. Most common in Chiapas and Tabasco.
- Tejuino: Ferments corn masa with piloncillo for a couple of days until it turns slightly fizzy. Served with shaved ice and lime.
- Tascalate: Combines roasted maize, cocoa, achiote, and ground pine nuts. A Chiapas specialty most visitors never find elsewhere.
Paletas
Blend fruit with water or cream. Add a little sugar. Freeze it on a stick. That’s the entire recipe for a paleta. Strawberry-vanilla, blackberry-lime, and Mexican coffee disappear fastest from any freezer case.
Mexican Beer: National Brands vs. Craft
Two companies control most of Mexico’s beer: Grupo Modelo and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. But the split between “national” and “craft” matters more than most drinkers realize. National lagers are brewed for consistency across hundreds of millions of bottles. Craft breweries chase flavor variation from batch to batch instead.
Modelo-family beers include Corona (light and easy-drinking), Modelo Especial (a fuller-bodied lager), and Pacífico (very light, built for beach weather).
Moctezuma-family beers include Tecate and Tecate Light, Bohemia Clara and Bohemia Oscura, and Sol and Superior.
Craft breweries have grown fastest in border cities like Tijuana and in Mexico City. Hops and imported malt are easier to source there. Cucapá, Insurgentes, and Colima show up most often on craft beer lists outside Mexico.
Agave Spirits and Regional Liquors
Not every agave spirit is tequila. The differences aren’t just cosmetic. They come down to regulation, geography, and how the agave gets cooked.
Tequila
Tequila can only carry that name if it’s made from Weber Blue agave. It must also come from one of five regions: Jalisco, or specific parts of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas. Mexican law requires tequila to be bottled between 35% and 55% ABV. Most bottles sold outside Mexico land at exactly 40% ABV, since that’s the U.S. import minimum.
A tequila labeled “100% agave” uses only blue agave sugars during fermentation. One labeled simply “tequila” can legally blend in up to 49% non-agave sugar. That’s worth checking on the label before you order a margarita, especially if you’re expecting the pricier pour. Explore the full range of house and flavored margaritas built on tequila as a starting point.
Mezcal
Mezcal covers a wider range of agave than tequila does. It’s made mainly from Agave Angustifolia, better known as Espadín. Other varieties, like Tepeztate, Tobalá, and Arroqueño, show up in more artisanal bottles. Production spans nine states, but Oaxaca alone makes about 90% of it. Espadín-based mezcal tends to taste smoky and vegetal, with hints of pineapple or honey.
Rarer varieties like Tobalá lean more mineral and herbal. Traditional producers still roast the agave hearts in earthen pits lined with volcanic stone, then distill twice in copper or clay pot stills. That slower, smokier process is what gives mezcal its signature flavor over tequila’s cleaner profile. Order it with a chile-and-salt orange slice on the side, not lime. The citrus and chile are meant to soften mezcal’s smoke, not mask it.
Pulque
Pulque comes straight from the fresh sap of the maguey plant. It’s milky, low-proof, and predates Spanish colonization by centuries. Researchers have taken a second look at it lately, too. A mixed community of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts drives the fermentation, and studying those microbes for probiotic benefits is now a major research focus. In other words, a drink older generations once dismissed as rustic is now showing up in microbiology journals, for the same reason kombucha did.
Raicilla, Bacanora, Sotol, and Charanda
- Raicilla: An agave spirit made in Jalisco for over 500 years, largely unregulated and often homemade.
- Bacanora: Legally producible only in Sonora, and only since the 1990s, after decades as a banned moonshine.
- Sotol: Double-distilled from the sotol plant, not agave at all, and native to Chihuahua.
- Charanda: A sugarcane spirit from Michoacán, traditionally sipped before a meal the way you’d serve vermouth.
Rompope, Pasita, Pox, and Toritos
- Rompope: Egg, milk, and vanilla liqueur, close to eggnog, usually served chilled after dinner.
- Pasita: A fermented-raisin liqueur from Puebla, poured over a cube of cheese instead of ice.
- Pox: A corn, wheat, and cane-sugar spirit once reserved for Mayan ceremonies, now showing up in modern cocktail bars.
- Toritos: A frozen blend of peanuts, soursop, and condensed milk. It was once a field-worker’s drink in sugarcane country, and it’s rarely seen outside that region today.
Mexican Cocktails: The Six Most-Ordered
Margarita
Tequila, orange liqueur, fresh lime juice, and a salted rim. That’s the whole formula. Every variation, whether spicy, fruit-flavored, or mezcal-based, starts from this same ratio. Swap the tequila for mezcal, and the same build becomes a mezcal margarita: smokier and less sweet.
Paloma
Tequila, lime juice, and grapefruit soda over ice, with an optional salted rim. Higher-end bars swap the bottled soda for fresh grapefruit juice and soda water. That small change shifts the drink from candy-sweet to genuinely tart. Ask your bartender about it if the classic version tastes too sugary.
Michelada, Chelada, and Cubana
Beer, lime juice, hot sauce, and a salted rim make the most common version of a michelada. Drop the hot sauce, and you’ve made a chelada. Add Worcestershire sauce and a chili-salt rim, and it becomes a cubana. The name shifts more by region than by recipe. Don’t be surprised if the same order gets you a different name in a different state.
Clamato Preparada
Beer mixed with Clamato (a tomato-clam juice), hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Order it next to ceviche or the seafood specials. Both share the same bright, acidic base.
Charro Negro
Tequila, cola, and lime over ice. No menu needed. Most bartenders across Mexico know this build from memory alone.
Coronarita, Sangria, and Mimosa
- Coronarita: A Corona bottle turned upside down into a frozen margarita.
- Sangria: Red wine mixed with fruit for a lighter, fruitier punch.
- Mimosa: Champagne and orange juice, standard at any Sunday brunch.
Mexican Wine: The Overlooked Category
Valle de Guadalupe, in Baja California, is Mexico’s fastest-growing wine region. It’s known for crisp rosés and full-bodied reds. Very little of it leaves the country. Export numbers stay so low that tasting these wines usually means a trip to Ensenada itself. That’s worth knowing next time someone asks why Mexican wine rarely shows up on menus outside the region.
Food and Drink Pairings, by Weight and Heat
Match drinks to dishes by intensity, not category. That rule holds up better than “beer with tacos, wine with everything else.”
- Margarita with tacos al pastor: The citrus cuts through the smoky, marinated pork.
- Michelada with ceviche: The spice and acid mirror the dish’s citrus-cured seafood.
- Blanco tequila with grilled seafood: A clean, high-proof spirit stands up to charred shrimp or lobster without overpowering it.
- Café de olla with tamales: The cinnamon-spiced coffee balances a savory-sweet breakfast.
- Mezcal with mole: Smoke against smoke. It’s the pairing most sommeliers reach for first.
Build a full pairing menu around the happy hour specials, where discounted margaritas and appetizers run daily from 2 PM to close.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an agua fresca?
It’s a non-alcoholic drink made by blending fruit, water, and sugar. Watermelon, hibiscus, tamarind, and lime are the most common flavors.
Where can I find dried hibiscus flowers for agua de Jamaica?
Check Latin grocery stores and health food stores. They usually stock dried hibiscus under the label “flor de Jamaica.”
What is piloncillo, and can I substitute it?
Piloncillo is unrefined Mexican cane sugar, sold in cone shapes. Dark brown sugar is the closest substitute, though it tastes a bit less smoky.
Is a michelada the same as a chelada?
No. A chelada is just beer, lime, and salt. A michelada adds hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Naming still shifts by region, though, no matter the exact recipe.
What’s the difference between tequila and mezcal?
Tequila must come from Weber Blue agave, grown in one of five set regions, and it’s usually steam-cooked before distillation. Mezcal can use dozens of agave varieties across nine states. It’s traditionally roasted in earthen pits, which is where its smoky character comes from.
Where can I try authentic Mexican drinks in La Mesa?
Visit the full menu at La Casa Blanca. Margaritas, aguas frescas, and Mexican beer round out a menu built by Michoacán-trained chefs. Read the kitchen’s story on the About Us page, or plan a visit through Contact Us.