Paloma with Oleo Saccharum

I recently had my first Paloma cocktail, which was a revelation. Apparently I don't hate grapefruit after all, because this drink made me basically do away with drinking margaritas and switch to these instead. Think of it as a slightly more sweet, more complicated margarita, that's also pink. Palomas can be made with grapefruit soda, or they can be made with fresh grapefruit juice. And since I was trying to figure out why I needed to learn to make an oleo saccharum, once I started thinking through the drink I realized this was the right opportunity to learn.

Serve with a tomato-groundcherry salsa and some chips, and feel no shame in forgetting to make dinner afterwards

Oleo saccharum is a cool trick to extract essential oils from citrus peel, where you put the peels in with sugar and beat them up a bit until they soak into the sugar and create an infused syrup to use in cocktails. I've mostly seen lemon used in this way, and tried this once, but wasn't sure what to do with it other than make limoncello. The grapefruit version makes a really powerful grapefruit-flavor syrup that doesn't have too much extra bitterness, and it really amplifies the grapefruit flavor in the final drink. This can be made in a bowl and left overnight, but if you have a vacuum sealer and just need to have one of these as soon as possible, this can be made in a couple of hours.

The finished oleo saccharum after 2 hours under vacuum

I tried a bunch of variations on this cocktail - mixtures of tequila and mezcal, adding grapefruit bitters, charring the grapefruit on the grill first. In the end, some things helped with flavor, some with color, but a lot was overkill. I'm presenting the version I'm going to be making moving forward.

Completely pointless overkill. But the drink did come out a slightly darker color, with a bit more smoke flavor. I may revise if I oil the grapefruit first and get it over a higher flame.

I'm told by people in the know that the proper garnish on the rim of this drink is Tajin. I went with salt, but the swap certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

• 2 oz tequila, with up to 25% replaced with mezcal
• 1/2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice, from approximately 1/2 of one lime
• 2 oz fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, from approximately 1/2 of one grapefruit
• 2 oz club soda
• 1 tsp grapefruit oleo saccharum, recipe below. Substitute agave, simple syrup, or whatever liquid sweetener your body can cope with
• Coarse kosher salt, for rim of glass

Juice the citrus, saving the spent lime half. Rub this on the rim of your glass and allow to dry slightly, then dip rim in salt.

Into the glass, pour the tequila/mezcal, citrus juices, and oleo saccharum. Stir to combine. Add ice, top with the club soda, lightly stir again, and enjoy.

Oleo Saccharum

• Peels from 2-3 grapefruits
• Equivalent amount of superfine sugar, by weight, compared to the peels

Peel the grapefruit in large strips, being careful not to grab too much of the white pith layer. If you have superfine sugar, put the peels and the sugar into a bowl, or a vacuum sealer bag. If you have regular sugar, consider throwing into a blender for a few seconds, to make into finer sugar - this will help the liquids and oils more thoroughly dissolve the sugar, otherwise there's a crystallized layer of sugar that will form and be less useful. If placing in a bowl, bash up with a spoon or muddler for a while, then leave bowl overnight to extract the oils. If using a vacuum sealer, leave for 2-3 hours, or refrigerate for up to a week, no bashing necessary.