Before shopping, decide which drink you're actually making. The two ingredient lists barely overlap.

The Delish batch calls for:

• 1 cup tequila
• 1/2 cup triple sec
• 2 1/4 cups pink lemonade
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 cups ice
• Coarse salt, for rimming glasses
• 4 lemon slices, for garnish

That combination makes four servings (Delish).

The Sous Chef single-serve version calls for:

• 1 3/4 oz blanco tequila
• 1/2 oz pink grapefruit juice
• 1/4 oz cranberry juice
• 1/2 oz simple syrup
• Fresh mint, for garnish

That's it, one glass (Sous Chef).

Beyond tequila, nothing carries over. There's no triple sec, lemon, or salted rim in the grapefruit-cranberry version, and no grapefruit or cranberry anywhere near the lemonade version. If a recipe card or grocery list mixes elements of both, it's improvising, not following either source.

This is the four-drink, fifteen-minute version, and it's the one to reach for when people are arriving soon and you don't want to be mixing drinks one at a time all night.

1. Rub a lemon wedge around the rim of four glasses, then dip the rims in coarse salt (Delish).
2. Add ice, pink lemonade, lemon juice, triple sec, and tequila to each glass, then stir. If you'd rather have a heavier ice pour, mix the liquid ingredients together first and pour the combined mixture over ice afterward (Delish).
3. Garnish each glass with a lemon slice (Delish).

Total time runs about 15 minutes, with 10 minutes of that as prep, and the recipe yields four servings (Delish). That ratio, four drinks for roughly the effort of making one, is the whole appeal. If you're hosting and expect people to trickle in over an hour, you can stir the tequila, lemonade, triple sec, and lemon juice together in a pitcher ahead of time and hold it in the fridge, then pour over ice and salt the rims as guests show up.

One number worth flagging before you serve this to anyone watching sodium: Delish's nutrition estimate puts each serving at 278 calories, 18g of sugar, and 1,006mg of sodium, a figure almost certainly driven by the salted rim (Delish). Delish notes these are Edamam-generated estimates rather than verified nutrition analysis, but the sodium number is high enough that skipping the salt rim, or salting only half the glasses, is worth considering if you're serving a mixed crowd.

This one takes more setup than the lemonade version because you're making simple syrup from scratch first, but it produces a tighter, more composed drink for one person rather than a pitcher for a party.

1. Combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar with 1/2 cup water in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil (Sous Chef).
2. Remove from heat and stir until the sugar has fully dissolved, then let the syrup cool completely before using it in the cocktail (Sous Chef).
3. Add the tequila, grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, and cooled simple syrup to a cocktail shaker with ice, then shake vigorously until well chilled (Sous Chef).
4. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice, garnish with a couple of fresh mint leaves, and serve immediately (Sous Chef).

The syrup instructions cover two separate things: cooling it before you mix the drink, and storing it in an airtight container in the fridge afterward (Sous Chef). If you're making one drink tonight, cool the syrup on the counter until it's no longer warm to the touch, then shake. If you've made a full batch, refrigerate whatever's left over. A half cup of syrup goes a lot further than one drink's worth, and leftover syrup keeps well for other citrus or fruit cocktails, so there's no reason to dump the extra down the drain.

Skip the cooling step at your own risk. Shaking warm syrup with ice melts the ice faster than it should, which waters down the drink before it ever reaches the glass.

Neither version is more "correct" than the other. They're built for different moments, and picking between them is mostly a question of who's drinking and how much time you have.

If you want a fruitier lemonade version, swap in strawberry or raspberry pink lemonade instead of the standard kind (Delish). The salted rim and lemon garnish keep this version visually and structurally close to a classic margarita, which makes it a comfortable pour for guests who already order margaritas by default. It's also the one to reach for when the goal is volume: four drinks in 15 minutes covers a small gathering without much fuss.

The grapefruit-cranberry version reads differently. With just half an ounce of grapefruit juice, a quarter ounce of cranberry, and half an ounce of syrup against nearly two ounces of tequila, it's a spirit-forward drink dressed up with a little color and sweetness rather than a fruit punch with tequila added. Sous Chef built it as a spring cocktail meant to evoke warmer weather (Sous Chef), which makes it a natural fit for smaller occasions: a shaken drink to make for one or two people rather than a crowd, patio pours, brunch, that kind of thing. It's a reasonable call for any evening where you'd rather sip something balanced than pour something fast.

Glassware is flexible on both ends. Delish doesn't specify anything beyond "four glasses," so a rocks glass, a margarita glass, or even a mason jar all work fine as long as the rim can hold a line of salt. The Sous Chef version specifically calls for a rocks glass with fresh ice after straining (Sous Chef), which keeps the drink cold without further diluting it from the shaker ice.

Two documented recipes share the Pink Señorita name: a batch pink-lemonade margarita variant built for groups (Delish), and a shaken grapefruit-cranberry drink built for smaller, spring-leaning occasions (Sous Chef). Neither one has a claim on being the original, so there's no wrong answer here, just a question of what the occasion calls for.

A workable rule: if you're pouring for four or more people and want everyone holding a drink within fifteen minutes, make the lemonade version. If you're making one or two drinks and don't mind boiling sugar water first, shake the grapefruit-cranberry version instead. Try both once, see which one gets asked for again, and don't be surprised if you end up borrowing the salted rim from one and the fresh mint from the other.