THE MYTH:

THE TRUTH:

I invented the Margarita right here in this very bar about 20 years ago.

Nobody knows who created the margarita, and nobody seems to know how the even older custom of drinking it with a lick of salt and a slice of lime got its start. "It would be easier to identify the missing link between man and ape," declared Texas Monthly, and TM is a magazine with some claim to authority on the subject. A Texas socialite named Margarita Sames claims to have mixed margaritas for houseguests one Christmas at her Acapulco vacation home in 1948 (again TM, July 1991). But someone named Vern Under is known to be the first importer Jose Cuervo into the U.S. in 1945, and Vern advertised the product with the ad tag line "Margarita: It's more than a girl's name," beating out Margarita Sames by at least three years. So, who knows?