La Paloma Tradicional

Tequila, freshly squeezed grapefruit, and lime — the Paloma made from scratch, the fresh naringin bitterness and citrus oils delivering what grapefruit soda cannot.

La Paloma Tradicional is the fresh-ingredient version of Mexico's most consumed tequila cocktail, prepared with hand-squeezed grapefruit juice rather than commercial grapefruit soda — a distinction that produces a meaningfully different drink with more pronounced citrus aromatics and natural bitterness. The Paloma — whose name means dove in Spanish — is by most domestic market measures Mexico's most-ordered cocktail, consumed more widely than the Margarita within the country even as the Margarita dominates internationally. The commercial version typically uses Jarritos Toronja (grapefruit soda produced by the Jarritos company, founded in Mexico in 1950) or Squirt (produced by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group), both sweetened carbonated grapefruit drinks whose sugar content produces a more accessible, less bitter result than fresh juice. The traditional preparation uses freshly squeezed grapefruit — typically the pink grapefruit varieties cultivated in Mexico's citrus-producing states — combined with tequila, fresh lime juice, and a salt rim, producing a drink whose naringin-derived bitterness and essential-oil aromatics from the fresh peel create a complexity that no bottled grapefruit soda can replicate. The Paloma's origins are not precisely documented; it likely developed organically from the natural affinity of tequila and grapefruit.