Paloma

Try the Paloma with your favorite brand of grapefruit soda. Popular brands are Squirt and Jarritos.

As grapefruit sodas can be really sweet, the addition of lime juice will help balance the cocktail. You can also garnish with a lime wedge to let the drinker decide how much lime juice they’d like to add.

Alternatively, make it with a higher quality grapefruit soda, it won’t be as sweet and will have a touch of bitterness.

Jean-Félix from Truffles on the Rocks makes his own grapefruit soda using a siphon. Give it a shot!

To make the salt rim, first place some salt on a flat plate. Take a wedge of lime and rub it along the outer side of the glass. Take the glass and roll it on the salt.

For a Paloma using fresh ingredients, see our alternate recipe.

In Mexico, the Paloma is the most popular cocktail, surpassing the Margarita.

Paloma means ‘Dove’ in Spanish. It is unclear why the drink is named this way.

Squirt was invented in the US in the 1930s, but it wasn’t exported to Mexico until 1955.

Companies looking to sell more Squirt were advertising drinking it with Tequila in the 1970s (“Tequila has appeal with Squirt”).

The Paloma began becoming popular in the United States in the mid 90s.

The term Changuirongo is used to describe the combination of tequila with any carbonated soft drink.