Spicy Paloma

In Mexico the paloma outsells the margarita by a wide margin, and it is the simpler drink: tequila, grapefruit soda, lime, salt. Bitter and salty and cold. Adding chilli heat to it is less an innovation than an inevitability.

Grapefruit is the reason this works. Its bitterness sits above the agave and below the fruit, so the mango in the Mango Habanero liqueur has room to be tropical without turning the drink into dessert. The habanero and the salt rim end up doing the same job from opposite ends — both make the grapefruit taste sharper and the next sip more inevitable.

Salt the rim first: run a lime wedge round it and roll the outside of the glass in salt, so none falls into the drink. Ice, tequila, liqueur, a hard squeeze of lime, then grapefruit soda to top. Stir gently once. Use a decent tequila — at this ratio you can taste it, and a rough one shows. Aperitivo hour, long afternoons, anything grilled.