Drink · 4 min · Amounts not specified
Smoked Paloma
Paloma bones, mezcal instead of tequila, a smoked-salt rim. Soda last. It should taste like grapefruit and smoke, not a margarita.
The sheet · 1 tall glass · 4 min
easyWhy tonight. Paloma bones, mezcal instead of tequila, a smoked-salt rim. Soda last. It should taste like grapefruit and smoke, not a margarita.
What it needs
Nothing confirmed on your shelf yet — this list is the whole ask.
- mezcal
- grapefruit
- soda
- smoked salt
Good if you have them, fine if you do not: lime.
Method
- Mezcal in place of tequila, so the smoke meets the grapefruit's bitterness rather than the lime's acid.
- Fresh grapefruit only — bottled has lost the bitterness that the drink is built on.
- Smoked salt on the rim, which doubles the smoke without adding more mezcal.
- Soda over plenty of ice, stirred once, and drunk long and slow.
Technique coach
What the method is trying to make happen
Sequence, correction, heat and texture, equipment workarounds, scaling, and component reuse are available with this cook sheet.
An educational pour, not a reprint of a licensed spec. No allergen or alcohol-safety claim.
Cook or pour it, then edit the shelf if you emptied a bottle or used the last of something.
The technique underneath this
Going wrong while you cook it? Say what it is doing and the triage will tell you what is happening, the smallest move, and the instinct to resist.
Watch the technique behind this one
Third-party video. Opens in a new tab — nothing is embedded and nothing is fetched from a video platform until you click.
Reviewed video matched to this method, not to the cuisine. Opens in a new tab.
- Cocktail structureBasic Cocktails - How To Make A DaiquiriCocktail ChemistryThe plainest sour there is, which makes base-acid-sweet balance easy to taste rather than merely read.197K+ views at the September 2026 review. · Link checked 2026-09-08
- Cocktail structureHow to make a Whiskey HighballA Bar AboveThe pour that keeps the bubbles. A highball is mostly a handling problem.Link checked 2026-09-08
- Syrups and citrusHow to Make Fresh Juice for CocktailsEpicuriousJuicing citrus fresh for drinks, and the plain reason bottled juice does not work.Link checked 2026-09-08
Why each of these is on the list
What the ingredients are actually doing
- mezcal
- Smoke over the same agave backbone, and it does not blend so much as lead.
- grapefruit
- Bitter as well as sour, which makes it the one citrus that can carry a drink on its own.
- soda
- Carbonation is a texture and it is the first thing you lose.
- smoked salt
- Smoke without a fire, delivered as seasoning.
Missing one of them? The substitutions are written against those jobs rather than against a chart, so they say what each replacement costs this dish in particular.
Cooks from the same box
If you bought for this, you can already make these
Shares mezcal, grapefruit, soda
Mezcal Paloma
Grapefruit, soda and lime over mezcal. Long, low and the easiest way into mezcal for somebody who thinks they dislike it.
Shares grapefruit, soda, smoked salt
Salted grapefruit soda
Paloma bones with no tequila. Smoked salt on the rim does the job the spirit used to, which is to stop it reading as a soft drink.
Shares grapefruit, soda
Paloma
Citrus family may cover grapefruit.
Shares soda, smoked salt
Salted lime soda
Salt and lime is the oldest zero-proof combination there is. More salt than you think — under-salted it is just lime cordial.
Next
Cook it, then tell the shelf what you used.
The ranking is only as honest as the shelf behind it. Empty the cream, and everything that leaned on cream should stop being offered.