Does this sound familiar? It’s your last evening in Mexico, maybe second-to-last. You’re on the terrace or at the beach bar. The sun is doing something absurdly beautiful on the horizon. There’s a drink in your hand, probably the same drink you’ve had every evening this trip, and somewhere between the light and the salt air and the sound of the water you think: I need to figure out how to make this at home.
We hear that. So this month, we’re just going to tell you.
The Paloma has been a fixture at the resort bars all summer long, and if you haven’t ordered one yet, or if you have and now can’t stop thinking about it, here’s the recipe. It’s simpler than a margarita, lighter, more citrusy, and it pairs with a warm evening in a way that feels almost designed for it. Which, in Mexico, it sort of was.
The Resort Paloma
Serves 1 | About 5 minutes
What you need:
2 oz blanco tequila: 100% agave on the label, it genuinely matters
3 oz fresh grapefruit juice: freshly squeezed if you can manage it
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz agave nectar or simple syrup
Small pinch of sea salt
Splash of sparkling water or grapefruit soda, Jarritos Toronja if you can find it
Ice
Tajín or coarse salt for the rim (technically optional, practically mandatory)
Grapefruit slice and fresh mint to finish
How to make it:
Rim a highball glass: just half the edge, lime wedge first, then Tajín or salt. This way some sips have it and some don’t. That’s the move. Fill the glass with ice.
Combine tequila, grapefruit juice, lime juice, agave nectar, and the pinch of sea salt in a shaker. Shake for a solid 15 seconds: you want it cold, not just mixed. Strain over the ice. Splash of sparkling water or grapefruit soda on top, one gentle stir, garnish.
Take it somewhere with open air. That part isn’t optional.
A few honest notes
The Tajín rim isn’t decoration. The chili-lime salt does something to the grapefruit bitterness that’s genuinely better than the sum of its parts, if you’ve never tried it, this is the recipe that’ll convert you.
Balance is everything with a Paloma. Sweet grapefruit? More lime. Very tart? More agave. Taste as you build it. There’s no fixed formula, there’s just what tastes right to you, which is actually a very Mexican approach to cocktail-making.
Making a pitcher? Multiply everything by six, skip the shaker, stir well, and don’t add the sparkling water until you’re ready to pour, otherwise it goes flat on you and the whole thing falls apart.
The part we can’t put in a recipe
The same drink tastes different at home the week after you get back. There’s something about making it yourself, the smell of the grapefruit, the sound of the shaker, the particular color it turns in the glass, that pulls the whole trip back for a few minutes. The balcony. The light. Whatever evening you’re thinking about right now.
That’s what you’re actually making. The Paloma just helps.
Try it and tag us, @my_uvci on Instagram. If you’ve got a resort memory that goes with it, we want to hear that too.
