Juan Hussong was first lured to Ensenada by the discovery of gold south of the border, but it was a form of “liquid gold” that would lead him to his fame and fortune. After a carriage accident left him with a broken leg, he was brought to an Ensenada cantina to recuperate. In short order, the cantina’s owner attacked his own wife with an axe and was briefly jailed and released. He took off to California in search of his wife (who had fled, understandably), and he asked Juan Hussong to look after the bar for him while he was gone. Neither the original owner nor his wife were ever to be heard from again.

The cantina was reborn as Hussong’s Cantina in 1892 and soon became famed for the handmade tequila made by Juan himself. Its reputation grew with the unconfirmed but widely repeated rumor that the “Margarita” cocktail was first created there by a Hussong’s bartender in honor of Margarita Henkel, the visiting daughter of the German ambassador to Mexico.

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