Paloma Cocktail Recipe

Recreate and indulge in a glass of Paloma, a famous Mexican summer cocktail, with this easy-to-mix Paloma recipe. Serve this bittersweet, sour, and salty cocktail at upcoming pool parties!

You can serve this cocktail drink with fresh seafood and crunchy tacos. Try this with our Easy Fish Tacos.

What Is Paloma Cocktail?

The main spirit used in this cocktail is tequila. The Paloma cocktail is very similar to Margaritas in which they are both a mix of tequila, lime, salt, and ice. But instead of using orange liqueur for its base, this paloma recipe uses grapefruit soda giving this a whole new blast of refreshing taste.

In this Paloma cocktail recipe, there are 3 important components to have and these are as follows:

• Base – You can use white or dark rum, gin, brandy or tequila. Tequila is used in many cocktail drinks. In this recipe, we used Blanco, an un-aged type of tequila, that gives your cocktail a citrusy and smoother agave taste. Blanco became widely used in making Margaritas and other sweet and sour mixes. 
• Modifier – To soften the base of our cocktail mix, you have to add fruit juices, aromatic wines, or other syrups.
• Flavoring – This is where our grapefruit soda pours. There are tons of grapefruit soda brands to choose from, such as Ting, Grapefruit Italian Sparkling Soda, Spindrift Sparkling Grapefruit, and many other store-bought ones.

What Does Paloma Taste Like?

This Paloma cocktail recipe only consists of very few ingredients. It has a distinct alcohol taste and thanks to these components, an ice-cold Paloma cocktail will be your next favorite tequila mix.

The lime juice gives this Paloma drink the key taste of being sour and sharp. The grapefruit soda tastes just like a natural fresh grapefruit but with its more intense acidic flavor. This makes the drink citrusy and refreshingly good on a hot summer’s day. Since the tequila Blanco is used in this recipe, it offers a tanginess with strong peppery and mildly sweet flavors to the cocktail. 

Tip: If you’ve run out of grapefruit soda, you may recreate this recipe using a regular club soda instead, along with a grapefruit syrup or grapefruit juice.

Other Must-Try Paloma Cocktail Variations

Summer tequila cocktails are popular in almost all parts of the world and experimenting with new flavors to blend and mix is just another way to enjoy this boozy drink.

Now that you’ve got all the components for this cocktail, here are some alternatives to this standard Paloma cocktail recipe that you may want to try.

• Serrano-Spiced Paloma Cocktail – This cold and refreshing cocktail is spicy but light at the same time. Enjoy this tequila-based drink with serrano and agave nectar.
• Summertime Cocktail Paloma  – This recipe calls for another mix of soda and grapefruit too. The only difference is we used a grapefruit syrup instead of the grapefruit soda in this recipe. It gives you a better control of sweetness and flavor intensity.

Tip: If you don’t want to use kosher or sea salt on the rim, you can use brown sugar instead. Brown sugar will also give a mellow caramel taste to your Paloma cocktail.