Home Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

The Margarita Mixologist

Effective date: October 20, 2026

Last updated: October 20, 2026

This policy explains what information The Margarita Mixologist (“TMM,” “we,” “us”) collects when you visit themargaritamixologist.com, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. We’ve tried to keep it short and plain. If something isn’t clear, email us at themargaritamixologist@gmail.com.

Some features described below aren’t live yet. They’re marked “When available.” This policy applies to them once they launch.

1. Who we are

The Margarita Mixologist is a margarita recipe and education website at https://themargaritamixologist.com. For privacy laws that use the term, The Margarita Mixologist is the “controller” (or “business”) responsible for your personal information. You can reach us about anything in this policy at themargaritamixologist@gmail.com.

2. Who this site is for

TMM is about alcoholic drinks. It is written for adults of legal drinking age: 21 or older in the United States, or the legal drinking age where you live if that’s higher. The site isn’t directed to children. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 21, or from children under 13 for the purposes of the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. If you believe someone under 21 has given us personal information, contact us and we’ll delete it.

3. The short version

  • You can read every article and recipe without an account.
  • We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used.
  • If you create an account, we use it to save your recipe ratings, private notes and collections. Your notes and collections stay private.
  • We earn money through affiliate links, and later may earn it through advertising and an optional Premium membership. We don’t sell your notes, ratings or account details.
  • We don’t currently show third-party display ads.
  • We don’t send a newsletter or marketing email. Creating an account doesn’t sign you up for one.
  • You can ask to see, download or delete your information at any time.

4. Information we collect

Information you give us

  • Comments. Your name, email address, optional website, and your comment.
  • Account details. Username, email address, password (stored in encrypted, hashed form) and any profile details you add. If you use Sign in with Google, see section 9.
  • Recipe activity. Your 1–5 star ratings, your private My Notes, your My Recipe Collections, and, where supported, the TMM recipes you’ve viewed or used (your “recipe history”).
  • Messages. Anything you send us by email or through our contact form.
  • When available: membership and billing. Your membership level, plus subscription and payment status (see section 8).

Information collected automatically

  • Device and usage data. IP address, browser type, device type, approximate location (city or region, from your IP address), referring page, pages viewed, time on the site, and interactions such as clicks, scrolling and recipe actions (for example, printing or changing units).
  • Server logs. Our web hosting provider keeps standard technical logs for security and to keep the site running.
  • Cookies and similar technologies. See section 13.

Information from others

  • Google. If you use Sign in with Google, Google sends us your name, email address, profile picture and a Google account identifier.
  • When available: payment processor. Confirmation that a payment succeeded or failed, the last four digits and type of your card, and your billing country or ZIP code. We never receive or store your full card number.

5. How we use information

We use personal information to:

  • run the site, show recipes, and remember your settings;
  • create and secure your account, and let you sign in;
  • save and show your ratings, My Notes and My Recipe Collections;
  • show public average star ratings on recipes;
  • give Premium Members their features, including personalized recommendations (when available);
  • process Premium payments, renewals, cancellations and refunds (when available);
  • understand which content and features are useful, so we can improve the site;
  • prevent spam, fraud, abuse and security problems;
  • answer your questions and requests;
  • send you service messages you need, such as account verification, password resets, billing receipts and important policy changes;
  • meet our legal obligations and enforce our terms.

We don’t use your private My Notes, Collections or recipe history for marketing or for editorial work.

6. Ratings, My Notes and My Recipe Collections

Our recipe cards use WP Recipe Maker, a WordPress plugin that stores the data on our own website.

  • Star ratings. You need an account to rate a recipe from 1 to 5 stars. Your rating is added to the recipe’s public average rating. We don’t show the public who left which rating.
  • My Notes. Notes you add to a recipe are private and tied to your account. Other visitors can’t see them, and we don’t publish them.
  • My Recipe Collections. Collections you create are private and tied to your account.
  • Recipe history. Where supported, we keep a private record of the TMM recipes you’ve used, linked to your account.

We don’t use your notes or collections in public content, analytics reports or editorial work. Site administrators can technically access stored account data, but they only do so when it’s needed to run, support or secure the site, or to answer your request.

7. When available: Personalized recommendations (Premium Members)

Premium Members will get AI-assisted recipe recommendations. To make them, we use that member’s own private My Notes, ratings and recipe history, along with our recipe data (ingredients, flavor profile, formula and intensity information).

  • Your My Notes, ratings and recipe history are used to generate your own recommendations. This is part of how the feature works, so there is no separate setting to leave My Notes out.
  • Your notes and history aren’t published, aren’t shared with other members, and aren’t used for unrelated marketing.
  • When the feature launches, recommendations will be processed with the help of a third-party AI service that acts only on our instructions and is bound by contract not to use member data to train its models.
  • Recommendations are suggestions only. They have no legal or similarly significant effect on you.

If you don’t want your notes used this way, you can choose not to add notes, delete them at any time, or not use Premium recommendations.

8. When available: Free and Premium memberships and payments

We plan to offer two account types:

  • Free Member: star ratings, private My Notes, private My Recipe Collections and personal recipe history.
  • Premium Member: everything in Free, plus Advanced Filters, ad-free browsing while signed in, and personalized recommendations.

When available, membership and billing will run through a third-party membership service, and payments will be handled by a third-party payment processor. The payment processor collects and handles your card details under its own privacy policy. We keep a record of your membership level, your subscription status and your payment history, so we can provide Premium features, process renewals and cancellations, and keep accurate business records.

If you cancel Premium, your account goes back to a Free Member account. Your ratings, notes and collections stay unless you ask us to delete them.

9. Sign in with Google

You can sign in with your Google account. Google then shares your name, email address, profile picture and Google account ID with us. We use these only to create and sign in to your TMM account. We don’t receive your Google password. Google’s use of the information is covered by Google’s Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy). You can remove TMM’s access at any time in your Google Account’s security settings.

10. When available: Registration safeguards

To protect members and keep fake accounts out, account sign-up will include:

  • email verification, to confirm you control the email address;
  • bot protection, such as a challenge or invisible check;
  • rate limiting, to slow repeated or automated sign-up and login attempts;
  • spam screening of new registrations.

These tools process technical information such as your IP address, browser details and how you interact with the sign-up form. Some of these tools may be provided by third-party security services, which use that information only to protect the site. New accounts get only the basic permissions a Free Member needs.

11. Comments

When you leave a comment, we collect what you type into the form (name, email, optional website and comment), plus your IP address and browser user-agent string. We use these to show and moderate comments and to help prevent spam.

We don’t currently send comments to an automated spam-detection service. If we add one later, comment data will be checked by that service, and we’ll name it here.

Gravatar. WordPress may send a scrambled code made from your email address (a “hash”) to Gravatar, a service run by Automattic, to check whether you have a Gravatar profile picture. Gravatar’s privacy policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Once your comment is approved, your name, profile picture and comment are visible to the public.

12. Analytics: Google Site Kit, Google Analytics 4 and Search Console

We use Site Kit by Google to connect the site to:

  • Google Analytics 4 (GA4). It uses cookies and similar technologies to collect information about how visitors use the site: pages viewed, time spent, device type, approximate location, how you arrived, and interactions such as clicks and scrolls. We use these reports in aggregate to decide what to write and how to improve the site. GA4 keeps this data for the retention period set in our Google Analytics settings, after which Google deletes it.
  • Google Search Console. It tells us how the site appears in Google Search results (search terms, clicks and impressions). This data comes from Google Search, not from cookies on our site.

Our recipe plugin also measures recipe actions such as printing, rating, changing units or adjusting servings, to understand which recipe features are useful.

Google processes this information under its own terms. You can learn how Google uses data from sites that use its services at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and you can opt out of Google Analytics with Google’s browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

13. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small files your browser stores. We use:

  • Essential cookies. WordPress sets these to make sign-in work and to remember your session. Login cookies normally last two days, or two weeks if you choose “Remember Me.” A temporary test cookie on the login page checks whether your browser accepts cookies.
  • Preference cookies. If you tick the box when commenting, your name, email and website are saved for one year, so you don’t have to type them again.
  • Analytics cookies. These come from Google Analytics (section 12).
  • Shoppable button cookie. On recipe pages with the Walmart ingredient button, the button’s provider, eMeals, sets a cookie with a random identifier (it lasts up to one year) and records when the button is shown or used, along with your browser type, time zone and the page address (section 15).
  • When available: advertising cookies. These would come from an ad network and its partners (section 14).
  • Third-party cookies from links and embedded content. These are set when you use affiliate links, shoppable buttons or embedded content (sections 15 and 16).

How to control cookies. You can control cookies yourself:

14. Advertising

Right now, TMM doesn’t show third-party display ads.

In the future, we may show a limited number of display ads through an ad network. If we do, the ad network and its advertising partners may use cookies and similar technologies to show ads, limit how often you see the same ad, measure ad performance, prevent ad fraud and, where allowed, show ads based on your interests. Before ads start, we’ll update this policy to name the network and link to its privacy policy and opt-out tools.

  • Ads won’t be shown to signed-in Premium Members.
  • We don’t give advertisers your account details, ratings, My Notes or Collections.
  • You can learn about interest-based ads, and opt out, using the tools listed in section 13.

15. Affiliate links and shoppable ingredient buttons

Some links on TMM are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. When you click, the other company may set cookies, or use similar technology, to record that you came from TMM. After that, what they collect is covered by their own privacy policy.

  • Amazon Associates. As an Amazon Associate, TMM earns from qualifying purchases. This includes product links and image units shown through the Auto Amazon Links plugin. Amazon’s privacy notice: https://www.amazon.com/privacy.
  • Zazzle. Links to TMM products and designs on Zazzle. Zazzle’s privacy policy: https://www.zazzle.com/mk/policy/privacy_policy.
  • Instacart (“Get Recipe Ingredients” button). Some recipe cards have a button that sends that recipe’s ingredient list, quantities, title and image to Instacart so you can shop for the ingredients. Instacart is run by a third party. Using the button takes you to Instacart’s site, where its privacy policy applies. We don’t currently earn a commission on purchases made through this button.
  • Walmart (“Get ingredients with Walmart” button). Some recipe cards have a button, provided by eMeals, that sends the recipe page address to eMeals so you can shop for the ingredients at Walmart. Using the button takes you to eMeals and Walmart, where their privacy policies apply. We don’t earn a commission from this button.

We disclose affiliate relationships on the pages where they appear and on our Disclosure page (https://themargaritamixologist.com/disclosure/).

16. Embedded content and social media

Articles may include embedded content, such as videos or posts from other websites. Embedded content behaves just as if you had visited the other site. That site may collect data about you, use cookies and track your interaction, especially if you’re signed in to it.

TMM has a page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094929505120) and an account on X. If you follow, message or interact with us there, those platforms collect information under their own privacy policies. We see whatever the platform makes visible to page owners, such as your public profile name and your comments. We don’t currently put Facebook or X tracking pixels on our website.

17. How we share information

We don’t sell your account information, ratings, My Notes or Collections. We share personal information only:

  • With service providers that help us run the site, and only as needed for the service they provide: our web hosting provider, Google (analytics, Search Console, Sign in with Google), and, when available, a membership service, a payment processor, registration-security tools and a third-party AI service for Premium recommendations.
  • With affiliate and shopping partners, and, if we add advertising later, advertising partners, through the cookies, links and buttons described in sections 13 to 15.
  • Publicly, when you choose to post: approved comments, and your rating’s contribution to a recipe’s average.
  • For legal reasons: to comply with the law, respond to valid legal requests, or protect the rights, safety and security of TMM, our users or others.
  • If the business changes hands: if TMM is sold or transferred, personal information may move to the new owner, who must keep honoring this policy or tell you about any changes.
  • With your permission, in any other case.

Do Not Sell or Share. We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t currently run advertising that shares it for targeted ads. If that changes, we’ll update this policy first and explain how to opt out. Where the law requires, we’ll treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser as a request to opt out of sale or sharing for that browser.

18. Email from us

We don’t send a newsletter or marketing email. Creating an account, or becoming a Free or Premium Member, doesn’t sign you up for marketing email.

We only send service messages: email verification, password resets, billing receipts and renewal notices (when available), replies to your messages, and important notices about your account or this policy. If we ever start a newsletter, it will be a separate, opt-in sign-up, and every message will include an unsubscribe link.

19. Legal bases (EU, EEA and UK visitors)

If you’re in the EU, EEA or UK, we rely on these legal bases:

  • Contract: to provide your account, Free and Premium features, recommendations and billing.
  • Legitimate interests: to keep the site secure, prevent spam and abuse, understand how the site is used in aggregate, and improve our content, where those interests aren’t overridden by your rights.
  • Consent: for anything we specifically ask your permission for. You can withdraw consent at any time.
  • Legal obligation: to keep records the law requires, such as tax records for payments.

20. How long we keep information

We keep information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for:

  • Account data, ratings, My Notes, Collections and recipe history: until you delete your account or ask us to delete them. When you delete your account, your ratings are anonymized and stay in each recipe’s public average rating, without any link to you.
  • Comments: we keep comments and their details until you ask us to remove them, so we can recognize returning commenters.
  • Analytics data: for the retention period set in our Google Analytics settings, then deleted by Google.
  • Server and security logs: as long as our web hosting provider needs them for security and to keep the site running.
  • When available: payment and membership records: as long as needed to provide your membership and as long as tax and accounting laws require.
  • Emails with us: as long as needed to handle your request, plus a reasonable period for our records.

Backups may keep deleted data for a short time until they’re overwritten in the normal backup cycle.

21. Security

We use reasonable measures to protect your information: encrypted (HTTPS) connections, hashed passwords, limited administrator access, software updates, and testing changes on a staging copy before they reach the live site. Payment card details will be handled by our payment processor, not stored by TMM. No website is perfectly secure, so we can’t promise absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we’ll notify you and the authorities where the law requires it.

22. Your choices and rights

For everyone

  • See, change or download your data. You can edit your profile, ratings, notes and collections in your account. To get a copy of your data, email us. When available: self-service data export in your account settings.
  • Delete your data. Email us to delete your account, comments or other personal information. When available: self-service account deletion in your account settings. We may keep a small amount of information when the law requires it, for example payment records.
  • Cookies. You can manage them in your browser settings and with the opt-out tools listed in section 13.
  • Email. We don’t send marketing email, so there’s nothing to unsubscribe from.

EU, EEA and UK residents (GDPR / UK GDPR)

You have the right to access, correct, delete or restrict your personal information, to object to our use of it, to receive a portable copy, and to withdraw consent at any time. You can also complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office).

California residents (CCPA/CPRA)

Where the California Consumer Privacy Act applies, you have the right to:

  • know what personal information we collect, use and disclose, and get a copy;
  • correct inaccurate information;
  • delete your information;
  • opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising (see “Do Not Sell or Share” in section 17);
  • limit the use of sensitive personal information (we don’t intentionally collect it);
  • be free from discrimination for using these rights.

In the past 12 months, the categories of personal information we may have collected are: identifiers (name, email, IP address); internet and device activity; approximate location; and the content you provide (comments, ratings, notes, collections). Once billing launches, we’ll also collect commercial information (membership and purchase records). The sources, purposes and recipients are described in sections 4, 5 and 17.

Other US states

Residents of states with similar laws (such as Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon and others) may have similar rights: to access, correct, delete and get a copy of their data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale of data, and profiling. Where a law gives you the right to appeal our decision on your request, reply to our decision email to start an appeal.

How to make a request

Email themargaritamixologist@gmail.com with the subject “Privacy request.” We may need to confirm your identity, usually by contacting you at the email address on your account, before acting. You can use an authorized agent where the law allows. We’ll respond within the time the law requires: generally 30 days under GDPR, or 45 days under US state laws. We don’t charge for reasonable requests.

23. International transfers

TMM is run from the United States, and our service providers, such as Google, may process data in the US and other countries. If you visit from outside the US, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US, where privacy laws may differ from yours. Where the law requires, we rely on appropriate safeguards for these transfers, such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (where the provider is certified) or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, as offered by our providers.

24. Changes to this policy

We’ll update this policy when our practices or the law change, and when “When available” features launch. The “Last updated” date at the top shows the latest version. For significant changes, we’ll also post a notice on the site, and, once member accounts exist, we’ll email account holders a service notice before the change takes effect. Previous versions are available on request.

25. Contact us

Questions, requests or concerns about privacy:

The Margarita Mixologist

Email: themargaritamixologist@gmail.com

¡Salud!