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A Paloma in a highball glass with a grapefruit wedge and salted rimPhoto by ROMAN ODINTSOV on Pexels
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Paloma

Tequila and grapefruit soda over ice with a squeeze of lime — Mexico's everyday tequila highball.

Difficulty
easy
Prep time
3 min
Strength
10% ABV
Glassware
Highball glass
Base
tequila
Serves
1

Related drinks

Ingredients

  • Tequila blanco
    50ml
  • Grapefruit soda

    To top

    120ml
  • Fresh lime juice
    10ml
  • Saltoptional

    For the rim

    5ml

Garnish: Grapefruit wedge

Scale for a party

Method

  1. Salt half the rim of a highball glass, if using.
  2. Fill the glass with ice.
  3. Add the tequila and lime juice.
  4. Top with grapefruit soda.
  5. Stir gently and garnish with a grapefruit wedge.

Equipment

Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.

  • Jigger

    Household swap: A tablespoon measure (1 tbsp ≈ 15ml)

  • Bar spoon

    Household swap: A chopstick or long-handled kitchen spoon

Missing an ingredient?

Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.

  • Instead of Grapefruit Soda

    Best substitute: Grapefruit Juice (or Soda Water)

    This is the lengthener in this drink.

    Quantity: Use roughly equal parts fresh grapefruit juice and soda water in place of the soda

    Flavour impact: Produces a less sweet, more DIY version with a cleaner grapefruit flavour.

    What changes

    Grapefruit Juice moves the drink a long way — less sweetness, more acidity, more bitterness, more intensity and less texture. This is worth making deliberately rather than as a stand-in.

    Sweetness ↓
    Less sweetness leaves the acid and the spirit more exposed, so the drink will taste sharper and drier than it should.
    Acidity ↑
    More acidity makes the drink taste fresher and drier, and can push a balanced sour over into sharp.
    Bitterness ↑
    Bitterness builds across a drink rather than announcing itself, so this will read as a longer, drier finish.
    Intensity ↑
    A more intensely flavoured ingredient will start to dominate the components around it.
    Texture ↓
    The drink loses its fizz, and with it the lift that was carrying the aromatics — it will read as flatter and sweeter.
    Character
    Both are citrusy, and you lose tart-sweet, fizzy and bright, and you gain tart, bitter-edged and refreshing. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.

    To correct for it

    • Add a little more syrup, a small amount at a time, until the edges come back together.
    • Use slightly less of it, or add a touch more sweetener to hold the balance.
    • Pour slightly less, or lengthen the drink a little, and let the sweetness catch up.
    • Scale it back by a third and let the other ingredients hold their share.
    • Serve it colder and consider a touch more acidity to replace the lift the bubbles were providing.
    High confidenceA well-known homemade alternative to bottled grapefruit soda.Makes a different drink

  • Instead of Tequila Blanco

    Best substitute: Mezcal

    This is the base in this drink.

    Flavour impact: Mezcal adds a smoky edge, turning it into a Mezcal Paloma.

    What changes

    Expect more intensity. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.

    Intensity ↑
    A more intensely flavoured ingredient will start to dominate the components around it.
    Character
    Both are earthy and agave-forward, and you lose peppery and bright, and you gain smoky and complex. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.

    To correct for it

    • Scale it back by a third and let the other ingredients hold their share.
    Moderate confidenceA known variation that changes the drink's character.Shifts the drinkBecomes a variation

Make it better

  • Use a good-quality grapefruit soda, or fresh grapefruit juice topped with soda water, rather than an overly sweet supermarket mixer.
  • Salt the rim for a classic margarita-adjacent edge, especially with a sweeter soda.
  • Build over solid ice rather than crushed, so the drink doesn't water down too quickly.
  • Add the carbonated mixer last, after shaking or stirring the rest, and pour gently to keep as much fizz as possible.

Rescue this drink

Too sweet
Use fresh grapefruit juice plus soda water instead of a sugary bottled soda.
Too bitter or plain
Add a touch more soda or a small splash of simple syrup.
Flat
Top with soda just before serving rather than letting it sit.
It is not as good by the time everyone has onegeneral guidance
This one does hold, within limits. Anything with fresh citrus in it starts dulling within a couple of hours, and anything carbonated is on a much shorter clock than that. Batch the stable part — spirits, sweeteners, bitters — ahead, add the citrus on the day, and the fizz at the moment of pouring. Adding the dilution to the batch matters too, or the first glass is right and the rest are progressively stronger.
Too weak or waterygeneral guidance
Add a splash more of the base spirit rather than extra mixer. For stirred or built drinks, over-dilution from ice is the usual cause — try a shorter stir or fewer, larger ice cubes.
Too sourgeneral guidance
Add a little more sweetener (simple syrup or the cocktail's usual sweetening ingredient), a small amount at a time.
Served too warmgeneral guidance
Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
Missing the garnishgeneral guidance
No grapefruit wedge? A lime wedge is a reasonable stand-in if you're out of grapefruit.

Make ahead & storage

Batch the base, finish at serving

Batch the base days ahead and add grapefruit soda and fresh lime juice when you pour.

Grapefruit soda:
Carbonated — it goes flat in a bottle, and there is no way to put the fizz back.
Fresh lime juice:
Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.

The tequila and lime juice can be pre-mixed and chilled ahead — add the grapefruit soda only at the moment of serving so it doesn't go flat.

What it tastes like

The taste, and what drives it

off-dry, sharp, very light, sparkling — a long and lengthened drink served long, over ice.

Off-dry

Dry → Sweet

Sweetened enough to take the edge off without reading as a sweet drink.

What drives it: Grapefruit soda — carries the most sugar into the glass.

Sharp

Soft → Sharp

Properly sharp. This is the axis the drink is built on.

What drives it: Fresh lime juice — supplies the acidity.

Faintly bitter

Gentle → Bitter

A bitter edge you would only notice if you looked for it.

What drives it: Grapefruit soda — provides the bitterness.

Very light

Light → Rich

Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.

No single ingredient accounts for this — it comes from the combination rather than from one bottle.

Very sparkling

Still → Sparkling

Carbonated, which lifts the aromatics and makes the drink taste drier than its sugar content alone would suggest.

What drives it: Grapefruit soda — carries the carbonation.

Moderate

Delicate → Bold

Moderate: assertive enough to hold its own, mild enough for a second.

What drives it: Tequila blanco — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.

What you smell first

  • Citrus peelLeads

    From Grapefruit soda, Fresh lime juice, Grapefruit wedge

  • Agave

    From Tequila blanco

Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.

How it was worked out

Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.

How balance actually works →

If it isn't right

What goes wrong with this drink, and why

Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.

The fizz is the last thing in, and the first thing lost

Worth knowing

Carbonation escapes to warmth, agitation and anything it can cling to — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass wall.

How to handle it: Chill the mixer hard, pour it against the inside of the glass, add it last, and stir once at most.

The citrus is the part that will not keep

Worth knowing

Fresh citrus flattens within hours. Everything else in a batch holds for days, so the juice is what decides how far ahead you can work.

How to handle it: Batch the stable components ahead and add the juice at the last moment.

  • It's too sweet

    Likely cause
    Grapefruit soda is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
    What to change
    Cut grapefruit soda by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
    What that does
    The drink will read sharper as well as less sweet, because the acid stops being balanced. That is usually the intention, but it is a bigger change than it sounds.

  • It's too sour

    Likely cause
    Fresh lime juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
    What to change
    Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
    What that does
    Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight. Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry above instead.

  • It tastes weak

    Likely cause
    Usually dilution rather than measurement: building in the glass adds water as it chills, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
    What to change
    Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
    What that does
    The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.

  • It's gone flat

    Likely cause
    Grapefruit soda loses gas to warmth, to agitation and to anything it can nucleate against — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass.
    What to change
    Chill the mixer properly, add it last, pour it against the inside wall of the glass, and stir once at most.
    What that does
    The bubbles last, which also makes the drink taste drier — carbonation contributes a real acidity of its own on top of the lift.

  • It doesn't smell of anything

    Likely cause
    This drink's aroma comes from citrus peel and agave, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
    What to change
    Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
    What that does
    More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.

  • It tastes one-dimensional

    Likely cause
    With 3 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a long and lengthened drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
    What to change
    Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
    What that does
    More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.

Taste profile

Sweetness
2/5
Sourness
3/5
Bitterness
1/5
Strength
2/5
Fruitiness
2/5
Freshness
4/5
Creaminess
0/5
Smokiness
0/5

Nutrition & alcohol

Estimate onlyBased on standard 50ml pour topped with grapefruit soda; sugar content varies significantly by brand.
Calories
150 kcal
Sugar
14 g
Carbohydrates
15 g
Alcohol units (UK)
2
US standard drinks
1.35
ABV
10%
Serving size
240 ml
Show calculation assumptions

Source: Calculated from standard measures

Calorie breakdown: ~133 kcal from alcohol, ~17 kcal from sugar and mixers.

Likely range: 113–188 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.

Assumes tequila blanco at 40% ABV and a standard commercial grapefruit soda.

These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.

Variations

  • Mezcal Paloma

    Replace the tequila with mezcal for a smoky version.

  • Spicy Paloma

    Add a slice of fresh jalapeño to the glass before building the drink.

What kind of drink this is

The structure behind the recipe

A built build: a long and lengthened tequila-based drink, served long, over ice — sparkling in the mouth.

Long and lengthened

A short measure stretched with a mixer or juice — the drink's length, not its concentration, is the point of it.

  • Base

    Tequila blanco

    Spirit in the largest measure — read as the base.

  • Sour element

    Fresh lime juice

    A short, sharp measure — recorded acidity 5/5, and nothing sharper is poured short, so this is the sour element.

  • Lengthener

    Grapefruit soda

    A long measure of mixer — this is what makes the drink long.

  • Aromatic

    Salt (optional)

    A seasoning rather than a structural component — salt and spices change how the rest of the drink reads without adding a measure of their own.

Drinks built this way are collected as the Highball family.

4 components' roles areworked out from the ingredient's category and recorded taste attributes rather than set by hand — the reasoning is shown above so you can disagree with it.

Technique

built

Components are poured into the serving glass over ice and stirred once, or not at all. Dilution happens while you drink rather than before.

The drink changes as you go: strongest at the first sip, longest and most diluted at the last. That drift is a feature of a long drink and a fault in a short one.

What it ruins: Nothing, but it cannot properly combine anything viscous — a syrup poured last will sit at the bottom.

Also involves batching.

Everything about building in the glass →How the technique works →

Dilution

In the glass, as you drink

Water from ice typically makes up around 15% of the finished drink for a built build (commonly 10–20%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.

Why dilution is an ingredient →

Served

Long, over ice

Highball glass · 240ml

Served on ice, so it keeps chilling in the glass. A larger, colder, slower drink than the same spirits served straight up.

Texture and aroma

SparklingSalt

Carbonation lifts aromatics and adds a slight acidity of its own, which is why a long drink can taste drier than its sugar content suggests.

These components are doing aromatic work: you meet them at the nose before the first sip, and they shape how everything underneath reads.

Where to go from here

Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.

Where it comes from

Origin and family

Origin of the Paloma

Mexican highball, likely mid-20th century; more commonly ordered in Mexico than the Margarita despite less formal documentation.

Family

Highball

1 part spirit · 2–4 parts mixer — built in the glass over a full load of ice.

The wider history

Every claim on these pages is labelled by how well the evidence supports it — documented, disputed, or folklore.

Try this next

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Related tools

Scale this for a party

Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.

Recipe confidence

A well-loved folk classic without a single fixed ratio.

Moderate confidence