Virgin Paloma
- Glass
- Highball
- Difficulty
- Easy
- ABV
- ~0%
Ingredients
- 3 ozfresh grapefruit juice90 ml
- ¾ ozfresh lime juice22 ml
- ½ ozagave syrup15 ml
- 2 ozclub soda60 ml
Instructions
Rim a highball with salt the same way you would a Paloma — lime wedge around half the outer lip, dip in flaky salt. Fill the glass with ice. Combine the fresh grapefruit juice, fresh lime juice, and agave syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake for 8 seconds, just to chill and dissolve the syrup. Strain into the salt-rimmed glass over ice. Top with club soda and give it one gentle stir. Garnish with a grapefruit wedge on the rim. The drink should be pale pink-gold, sparkling, and look like a Paloma that forgot the tequila — not a juice glass.
Sips & Tips
Technique
Fresh grapefruit juice is the drink. Bottled ruby cocktail juice makes a soda-fountain pink that will not pass for a Paloma. Shake the juices with the agave so the syrup does not sink, then soda last. Half-salt rim, not a full crust — without spirit, salt gets loud. Ice to the top. If you use grapefruit soda (Squirt, Jarritos) instead of fresh juice and soda, skip the agave and most of the extra soda; that is the Mexican shortcut and it is honest if you say so.
Balance
Three ounces of grapefruit to three-quarters lime and half an ounce of agave is a sour that soda can lengthen. White grapefruit is drier and better; ruby is sweeter and pinker. Taste the juice before you sweeten — January grapefruit may need no agave at all. Club soda, not tonic; tonic plus grapefruit is fine and is a different bitterness. This is 0% ABV. Do not sneak a splash of tequila into the house spec and keep the Virgin name.
History
The Paloma is Mexico’s tequila-and-grapefruit highball; its origin is murky and we are not going to clean it up here. The Virgin Paloma is a SipSelect Kitchen zero-proof build of that sour-and-soda shape: fresh grapefruit, lime, agave, soda, salt. It is not a branded NA spirit drink. If you want the alcoholic one, the house Paloma is already in the catalog.
A Virgin Paloma is grapefruit, lime, and soda that bothered with a salt rim. Keep the juice fresh and the name honest. Cheers.
Variations
Jarritos shortcut
Fill a salt-rimmed highball with ice, add ¾ oz lime juice, and top with grapefruit soda. No agave, no shake. Use it when the fruit bowl is empty and the soda is what you have.
Paloma (with tequila)
Add 2 oz blanco tequila to the house Paloma spec when you want the original. Do not call that version virgin. The NA build is the one on this page.
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Virgin Paloma
Glass: Highball | Difficulty: Easy | ABV: ~0%
Ingredients
- 3 oz fresh grapefruit juice
- ¾ oz fresh lime juice
- ½ oz agave syrup
- 2 oz club soda
Instructions
Rim a highball with salt the same way you would a Paloma — lime wedge around half the outer lip, dip in flaky salt. Fill the glass with ice. Combine the fresh grapefruit juice, fresh lime juice, and agave syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake for 8 seconds, just to chill and dissolve the syrup. Strain into the salt-rimmed glass over ice. Top with club soda and give it one gentle stir. Garnish with a grapefruit wedge on the rim. The drink should be pale pink-gold, sparkling, and look like a Paloma that forgot the tequila — not a juice glass.