Updated May 2026.
Tequila quotes are mostly toasts, not philosophy. The useful ones are short, attributed, and honest about the pour: a 1.5-ounce shot of 40% tequila is one US standard drink. A caption that treats blacking out as a personality is not a quote worth living by.
Updated May 2026. This refresh does not reprint a 50-line scrape of unattributed Pinterest text. A few verified short lines, then original toasts you can actually say without stealing someone’s joke book.
Short lines that survive a fact-check
| Line | Notes |
|---|---|
| “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” | Bar folklore, author unknown. Treat it as a warning label, not a workout plan. |
| “Tequila. Straight. No training wheels.” | Original toast for this page. Still 1.0 standard drink at 1.5 oz / 40%. |
| “100% agave, 0% worm.” | Original. The larva is a mezcal gimmick, not CRT tequila. |
| “Sip it like you paid the farmer.” | Original. Blanco can be a sipping spirit. It does not have to be a punishment. |
| “The lime is garnish. The ride home is the plan.” | Original. Citrus does not metabolize ethanol. |
| “Reposado rested. You should too.” | Original. Reposado = rested in oak, 2–12 months under CRT rules. |
What not to tattoo from a 2022 listicle
Unattributed “tequila is the only thing that understands me” copy is filler. Fake Hemingway, fake Dolly, and fake “Mexican proverb” lines were a cottage industry online. If you cannot name the speaker and a source, don’t put it in vinyl on the bar wall. Dorothy Parker’s real drinking lines are about gin and hangovers in her own poems — don’t bolt “tequila” onto them.
Queen of the South did not hand you a real bottle to quote either. Those brands were props. See what tequila is on Queen of the South.
If you need a toast that isn’t a dare
- “Health, then water.”
- “To the agave, not the floor.”
- “One neat. Then we reassess.”
Say the line, then put the glass down. A toast is one sentence. If the table answers with another round before anyone has water, you are not quoting anymore — you are stacking standard drinks. That is the whole problem the old 50-quote page dressed up as inspiration.
CRT, ABV, and the caption
Tequila is a Mexican geographic indication. Blanco / plata is unaged or briefly rested; reposado 2–12 months in oak; añejo 1–3 years; extra añejo 3+ years. Most US bottles are 40% ABV. Mixto can be 51% agave sugars. None of those grades change the NIAAA conversion if the label still says 40%. An “extra añejo quote” that implies the expensive bottle hits softer is marketing, not pharmacology.
A 750 mL 40% bottle is about 17 shots. That is inventory, not a personality. Four shots in about two hours is already NIAAA’s binge-drinking pattern for women; five for men. For jokes instead of toasts, see tequila jokes. For how to order the spirit without a scavenger hunt, see best shots to order at a bar.
Legal driving is 0.08% BAC in most US states (0.05% in Utah). Post the toast after the keys are already with someone else. Salt and lime are garnish. They do not reset blood alcohol. If you want the pour in milliliters, see how many mL is a shot.
How quotes got weird on this URL
The 2022 version padded a list to 50 so it would look like a gift article. Many lines were unsourced, duplicated, or lightly rewritten from other roundups. Reprinting them would be copyright laundry and bad advice. A shorter table with a CRT primer is more honest. If you need something for a bottle tag, use an original toast from the table and the NOM number from the label — that number is the actual citation.
Mezcal is a different GI. Smoking, worms, and “tequila’s wild cousin” one-liners mix the two on purpose. Fine in a joke. Not fine on a label. If the bottle says mezcal, quote mezcal rules, not CRT tequila classes. If it says 100% agave tequila, you already have the only slogan that matters.
Sources
- NIAAA / CDC: 1.5 oz of 40% spirits = 1 standard drink (14 g). Binge pattern 4 / 5 in about 2 hours.
- Consejo Regulador del Tequila: classes (blanco, reposado, añejo, extra añejo); 100% agave vs mixto.
- Original toasts on this URL are new for the 2026 refresh. Unattributed 2022 captions were dropped rather than laundered. Updated May 2026.