Paloma

Taste

Two ounces of tequila, a full ounce of grapefruit, half an ounce each of lime and simple, then soda over ice. Building the grapefruit half out of juice, syrup, and plain soda leaves the agave in front; a grapefruit soda would sit over it. Salt on the rim pulls the bitter edge off the grapefruit.

History

The paper trail starts with a 1950 brochure for Squirt, an American grapefruit soda, suggesting the mix with tequila. Squirt launched in Mexico in 1955 and advertised hard there in the early 1970s, and who first adapted it to Mexican taste is unknown. It was a Jalisco drink through the 1970s and 1980s, associated with the bars on the Parian square in Tlaquepaque, reached Southern California by the late 1990s, and spread across the United States in the early 2000s. Paloma is Spanish for dove. This menu builds the soda half from an ounce of fresh grapefruit, half an ounce of lime, half an ounce of simple, and plain soda water, over ice with a salt rim.

• The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, The Paloma
• Difford's Guide, Paloma

Same shape, other bottles

The Highball family, with the bottle that changed.

• Gin Fizzgin and lemon juice for tequila, grapefruit juice, and lime juice
• Tom Collinsgin and lemon juice for tequila, grapefruit juice, and lime juice
• Mojitolight rum for tequila
• Dark and Stormyaged rum and ginger beer for tequila and soda water
• Gin Rickeygin for tequila
• Kentucky Mulebourbon and ginger beer for tequila and soda water