Paloma Cocktail recipe (Skinny Cheat Version)

If you love a traditional grapefruit paloma cocktail but are looking for a lightened up version we have the perfect grapefruit cocktail! This skinny version still has refreshing grapefruit flavor in a sparkling cocktail with some clever shortcuts!

This popular tequila cocktail is always a favorite tequila cocktail. No question why.

It's the perfect drink on a hot day and goes with anything especially Mexican foods.

No cocktail shaker or fancy equipment requires. Pour into a tall glass of ice, garnish with a grapefruit wedge and you are good to go.

Jump to:

• What is a Paloma?
• What makes it skinny?
• Ingredients + Notes
• Favorite Grapefruit Sparkling Water
• How to rim a glass with salt
• How to make it
• Pro Tips
• More recipes you'll love!
• Recipe

What is a Paloma?

The kissing cocktail cousin to a classic margarita, Paloma drinks are a grapefruit version of a tequila cocktail.

A traditional Paloma recipe includes lime juice and often a bit of sweetener but no orange liqueur as in a margarita.

This popular cocktail is easy to make.

What makes it skinny?

• The fresh grapefruit juice and club soda is substituted by using grapefruit flavored sparking water.
• Instead of sweetening with traditional simple syrup this version of the classic cocktail is unsweetened or agave nectar can be used. Agave is much sweeter than sugar so less is needed.

Traditional Palomas have around 180 calories (or more at restaurants due to serving size). It will depend on the amount of tequila and juice used. Ours has 130 calories or 5 WW SmartPoints (all plans). For a skinny tip to make that less, refer to the recipe card Notes section.

Ingredients + Notes

Tequila. Use good quality blanco tequila or silver tequila. These have not bee aged so their flavor goes perfectly with fresh juices. Using good tequila makes all the difference in the flavor and how you feel after you drink it.

Grapefruit sparkling water. Flavored soda water is the best of both worlds. It delivers grapefruit flavor while keeping the cocktail light on calories. See the section below for our favorites. Always start with chilled soda water.

Lime wedge. For a fresh squeeze of lime juice.

Agave syrup. For more sweetness we recommend using just a little bit of agave.

Favorite Grapefruit Sparkling Water

We use grapefuit flavored sparkling water to get the paloma flavor. Our favorite brand for flavor and fizz is

Bubly. In our opinion it has the perfect amount of grapefruit flavor and fizz. It's just carbonated water and natural flavors with no calories.

La Croix. They also make a grapefruit water. In general La Croix is aggressively fizzy.

Fever-Tree. Quality maker of cocktail mixers. They now have a Sparkling Pink Grapefruit mixer that includes 9% red grapefruit juice from concentrate and fructose (fruit sugar).

The flavor has a stronger grapefruit flavor, it is sweeter so would sweeten up the cocktail (with no artificial sweeteners).

The fizzy factor is much milder; it has little fizz. It does have 30 calories for a 6.8 fluid ounce bottle (opposed to just sparkling water which would have none).

Spindrift. Another carbonated water with real fruit juice and the real grapefruit flavor comes through. It contains grapefruit juice, orange juice and lemon juice with no sweetener. It has 17 calories for a 12 ounce can.

Though we love using sparkling water if desired you could also use grapefruit soda (regular or diet). There are many brands of grapefruit soda but Jarritos soda is a classic Mexican soda. It does contain sugar so has a sweeter grapefruit flavor, still adding a fizz.

How to rim a glass with salt

This is a classic glass preparation for a margarita. When the cocktail is slightly sweet the salt rim provides a flavor contrast that makes the flavors pop.

With this Paloma cocktail version unless you've added some sweetener (we recommend a bit of agave nectar) the salt rim combined with the bright tangy grapefruit flavor can be too much.

Here is how to rim the glass and you can decide based on how you make the cocktail if you want to do it!

• Pour coarse salt (or margarita salt) onto a small shallow dish. It should be deep enough to get about ¼-inch of the rim of the glass covered.
• Slide a lime wedge around the rim of your glass to wet it.
• Turn the glass upside down and dip rim of glass into the salt.
• Gently turn back and forth to coat the rim.
• Place the glass upright and allow the salt rim to dry before pouring in the refreshing cocktail!

How to make it

Fill a glass with ice (rim with salt first if desired).

Combine the tequila and sparkling water in the glass. Give it a stir.

Add a ruby red wedge of grapefruit as garnish (if desired) and serve.

Pro Tips

Start with chilled sparkling water. Sparkling water tastes best cold so instead of relying on the fresh ice cubes in the cocktail recipe, start with it cold. Doing this also keeps the ice from melting as quickly!

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• Skinny Margarita
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Recipe