How This Houston Restaurant Became Home of the Iconic Shaker Margarita

Picos’s owner Arnaldo Richards transformed a tequila company’s failed promotion into a Houston relic

Houston chef Arnaldo Richards had been making margaritas for years using the simple, iconic combination of tequila, lime, and Cointreau. But it wasn’t until after opening his restaurant, Picos, in 1984 (then known as Picos Mex-Mex) that the Mexican restaurant became known not only for its iconic margaritas but also for its shakers.

The success is somewhat of a fluke, he says: “It was a tequila company’s failed attempt of combining a bottle of tequila and a shaker.”

In the 1980s, Richards says there were few tequilas on the market, but he noticed tequila company Sauza Conmemorativo was advertising a special offer, selling combination packages of tequilas with small plastic shakers at liquor stores — possibly a ploy to encourage people to make margaritas. The company’s promotion wasn’t working as planned. “People didn’t get it. Nobody knew what the shaker was for,” Richards says.

But this gave Richards an idea. He’d incorporate the shakers into a fanciful show for diners, pouring the margarita ingredients into the shakers and then bringing them to the table, where he’d shake the boozy liquid concoction and pour it into a glass. Unlike the usual method, though, he’d let the diner keep the shaker at the table so they could refill their glasses with the remaining margarita.

Richards called the company’s representative, inquiring how much the packages would cost with and without the shaker. Once he learned the price was the same (the tequila company was eager to get rid of the shakers), Richards bought multiple boxes to fuel his shaker margarita plans and later scored hundreds of free shakers stored in Sauza’s Houston warehouse. Soon, Richards says, he began sourcing them from liquor stores in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio before having custom shakers made for Picos.

“The ‘shaker margaritas’ became an instant hit,” with diners, Richards says. “We were able to leave the shaker at the table,” which, imprinted with Picos’s logo, became an effective marketing tool. “It was great for people that thought they’d get more margaritas. It worked out very well.”

The restaurant soon developed a full menu of shaker margaritas in different flavors, including a top-shelf Ultimate margarita, and La Billionaria, a $75 margarita made with some of the most expensive tequila available on the market and pours from a 100-year-old bottle of Grand Marnier. Richards recalls a nearby Chili’s restaurant seemingly adopting the idea, serving their Presidente margarita in blue shakers that were similarly brought to and left at the table. Still, in Houston, Picos largely had the monopoly, he says.

Nearly 40 years later, the shaker margarita is still synonymous with Picos. Other than the frozen and house margaritas, all of the restaurant’s most popular drinks are made in recognizable orange, green, and pink shakers, which, on any given day, grace nearly every bar seat and table in the dining room.

“On a busy day at the bar, I make at least 300 shaker margaritas,” says Victor Gutierrez, who has bartended at Picos for 17 years. “A lot of people like how we make it simple and fresh, with lime juice, Cointreau, [agave], and tequila, and shake it up.” To heighten the experience, the drink is served straight-up in a martini glass, making it feel a little fancier (some people call the Picos margarita a “Mexican martini,” he says); diners can take home the cult-favorite shaker for $5.

While the shakers are sometimes given a seasonal update, with special colors selected for themed events and holidays like Halloween, Richards says the margarita recipe has largely stayed the same. In some ways, it’s a relic. “I joke that they will go into the Smithsonian,” he says.