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The Paloma cocktail is a tequila based drink (like my delicious Tequila Sunrise) that merges the popular spirit with grapefruit soda (such as Fresca) for a light and refreshing cocktail.

Paloma Cocktail with Salted Rim garnish with a slice of grapefruit — Paloma Cocktail with Salted Rim

It also helps if you have a nice glass to serve these in. I tend to pick up most of of mine at thrift stores; you’ll find tons of beautiful glasses there if you go often enough.

How to Make a Paloma

To make the Paloma Cocktail, you’ll need the following ingredients:

grapefruit juice
silver tequila
grapefruit soda (such as Fresca or Jarritos).
salt or sea salt (for the rim)

Salting the Rim

First, you need to salt the rim. There are plenty of ways to do this but the one I find that works the best is to use a little bit of honey on your finger and run it along the edge of the glass. Pour some salt onto a plate, then dip the glass into the salt (I prefer to use sea salt myself).

Preparing the Paloma Cocktail

Combine the grapefruit juice and tequila in a shaker and shake until cold. Pour into a glass with ice and float with the grapefruit soda.

Garnishing the Paloma Cocktail

When it comes to garnishing, you can get as creative as you want. The most common garnish however is simple a slice of grapefruit or a twist.

Whenever you are making fruit based drinks, I always recommend using fresh fruit whenever possible and a manual juicer (not the machine) – I’m talking about the ones that you juice half a fruit on.

checkered tablecloth underneath a glass of Paloma Cocktail with Salted Rim garnish with a slice of grapefruit — Paloma Cocktail- Garnished

What does Paloma Mean?

The word Paloma simply means Dove in Spanish. How the drink itself received the name, I’m not sure but that’s what it means.

Give the drink a try and let me know what you think. I’m personally a fan of following this recipe as I’ve included a bit of fresh grapefruit juice which you don’t see in most recipes. I think it makes it taste better myself but if you prefer, you can always exclude it.

Cheers!

Mike

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Paloma Cocktail

A delicious tequila and grapefruit based cocktail.

5 from 5 votes

Review SavePrint

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Course: Cocktail

Cuisine: Mexican

Servings: 1

Calories: 190

Author: Karlynn Johnston

Ingredients

▢ 2 ounces tequila silver
▢ 1 ounce grapefruit juice freshly squeezed
▢ 4 ounces fresca add or reduce amounts to taste

Instructions

Salt the rim.
Combine the grapefruit juice and tequila in a shaker and shake until cold.
Pour into glass with ice and top with grapefruit soda (Fresca, Jarritos, etc)

Recipe Notes

Nutritional values may vary.

Nutrition Information

Calories: 190kcal, Carbohydrates: 14g, Sodium: 12mg, Potassium: 45mg, Sugar: 14g, Vitamin C: 7.6mg

All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.

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