Love a good paloma? Me, too. The paloma is a delightfully fizzy grapefruit, lime and tequila cocktail hailing from Mexico. If you enjoy a Greyhound, grapefruit margarita or ranch water, this cooling drink is right up your alley.

South of the border, palomas are typically made with grapefruit soda like Squirt or Jarritos, which taste similar to Sprite to me. Up here, bartenders often mix them with fresh grapefruit juice and sparkling water instead. I prefer mine to be less sweet and more citrusy, so I love the made-from-scratch option.

This paloma recipe is made from scratch with basic ingredients. You’ll need tequila, fresh grapefruit and lime, simple syrup (which is very easy to make), and Topo Chico or sparkling water. Make them at home with top-shelf tequila and you’ll enjoy a better paloma for less money than you’d pay a restaurant.

To make this paloma, we’ll shake everything but the Topo Chico in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shaking the ingredients together yields the kind of paloma you’d receive at a fancy cocktail bar. It’s a brief step that is worth the extra effort.

Finally, we’ll pour the mixture into a glass filled with ice and top it with Topo Chico to retain all those glorious bubbles. You can watch how it all comes together in the brief video below.

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Have you tried a ranch water cocktail? If not, let me introduce you! Essentially a tall tequila soda with extra lime, the ranch water is more than the sum of its parts. If you use a great tequila and Topo Chico, it tastes quite special.

The ranch water is like a bubbly, light and totally unsweetened margarita. If even “skinny” margaritas are sometimes too sweet for you, try a ranch water instead. It’s super refreshing and perfect on a hot day. When I’m at a bar without an exciting wine list, the ranch water is my go-to drink order regardless of the season.

Ranch waters hail from Texas, with Ranch 616 in Austin claiming to be “home to the original ranch water.” I honestly can’t recall when I first tried a ranch water—maybe it was during my month in Austin in 2015, or sometime in between. My brother lives in West Texas and I was delighted to discover ranch waters at his wedding reception a few years ago.

Pre-made ranch water cocktails in cans are becoming more popular, but you can’t beat a homemade ranch water made with good tequila, bubbly Topo Chico and fresh lime. They’re so easy to make. Find my recipe below!

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This holiday punch is unlike any I’ve ever had, and I think you’re going to love it. It’s not too sweet. It tastes like pear, vanilla, spice and everything nice. It’s a smooth, easy sipper, even with tequila inside. Yep, tequila!

This pitcher of cocktails was inspired by an oldie but goodie, my Pear Nectar Cocktails with Reposado Tequila. That cocktail is proof that simple ingredients can yield a delightfully complex cocktail. If you’re just making one or two drinks, follow that recipe instead.

You won’t need any fancy liqueurs for this holiday punch recipe, just some pear juice, reposado tequila, plus a few basic ingredients—lemon juice, club soda, cinnamon and vanilla extract.

If you’d like to batch some cocktails for your family or friends, this punch is just the ticket. Serve it at your holiday party! You could also share some holiday cheer by dropping off a jar of cocktails with friends or neighbors. I wrote the recipe to yield eight drinks, and you can divide or multiply it as you’d like.

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It’s that time of year, when little bunnies and the occasional chipmunk start scampering through my back yard. The grass is green again (when did that happen?) and trees are sprouting fresh green leaves. The light always changes on me around now, so please pardon the harsh shadows and highlights for a while. They make the photography process more challenging, in a way that’s both fun and trying.

Yesterday afternoon, after stressing over the cookbook all morning, I stepped outside and realized I was missing the most glorious seventy-two degree afternoon. I still had tons of work to do, though, like this blog post.

My fridge was (is) ironically empty, but my freezer is well-stocked with delicious frozen berries sent from Cascadian Farm for an upcoming project. And I have tequila, always. I decided to slow down and make some frozen strawberry margaritas to commemorate spring. They were just delightful: refreshing, not too sweet, boozy but full of ripe strawberry and fresh citrus flavor. Hope you’ll slow down and sip one soon! If you’re not feeling strawberry, check out my other margaritas here.

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When your day isn’t going your way, make margaritas! That’s what I say. When six o’clock rolled around yesterday, I satisfied my margarita craving with one of these thoroughly refreshing, sweet-and-spicy watermelon margaritas. They’re the latest in my collection of seasonal margaritas and I implore you to make them while the melons are still here.

These margaritas aren’t far off from last summer’s honeydew margaritas. Basically, you scoop the melon into your blender (I used my awesome new Vitamix blender, thanks Vitamix!). The blender will turn the melon into juice in no time flat. You may or may not want to strain the pulp out of the juice, depending on your watermelon and your personal preferences.

Naturally, the quality of your watermelon makes a huge difference in the flavor of your watermelon juice, so hunt down a good one at the farmers’ market if you can. I’ve found that the best watermelons for juice are any watermelons other than the standard grocery store variety, which is what I used here out of necessity. Boo.

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Spring weather comes on with a vengeance in central Oklahoma, where I grew up. I miss it. I miss the way the energy crackles in the air as the warm, southern winds crash into the cooler winds from the north. I miss the eerily still, humid mornings that prickle the back of my neck and tell me something isn’t quite right. Inevitably, on those days, the wind will pick up and my hair will turn into a million little whips again, all flailing in different directions.

Sometimes the clouds turn black, the air goes green and the tornado sirens start wailing. Spring in Oklahoma is rarely boring, oftentimes terrifying and mostly exhilarating.

Kansas City has been covered up by gray clouds for days. Days upon days upon days, with a few hours of sunshine and some rain here and there. I can’t recall a more dreary, boring spring. I want to poke the clouds and shout, “Do something!” We caught some much-needed sunshine yesterday afternoon and we’re supposed to get more this afternoon, before the sky goes gray again. Gray for days, I tell you.

I took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to bring you some refreshing blueberry margaritas, which would be just perfect for storm sipping. They’re modeled after the blueberry margaritas at The Mont in Norman, Oklahoma, which is an institution. My grandmother went there in college and I did, too!

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I am so excited about the change in seasons. It’s warm outside! Daylight savings is back! Light is streaming through my windows and I’m having so much fun capturing the rays and shadows in photos. I thought we could celebrate with some sweet and spicy margaritas. I know, I know, I was just going on about detoxing, but grapefruit is in season and it’s bursting with vitamin C, so that counts for something, right? Right.

When we were in Austin, I found grapefruits on special at HEB (six for a dollar!), which kick-started my grapefruit cocktail streak. Grapefruit, while not my favorite of the citrus family, is fantastic in cocktails. It really cuts the taste of alcohol and plays nicely with tequila, gin, vodka and whiskey.

I’m evidently on a mission to post every fruity margarita possible, so here we are with spicy grapefruit margaritas. This margarita recipe isn’t too far off from my classic paloma recipe, but it’s delicious in its own right. I muddled a tiny slice of jalapeño in my margaritas for some kick and mixed some chili powder into the salt mixture that goes around the rim.

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These refreshing, fruity margaritas have been my drink of choice lately. I highly recommend them. A word of warning, though—do not overfill your blender with melon. I learned that the hard way today. Honeydew melon went everywhere!

Honeydew on the window. Honeydew on the rug. Honeydew on my camera. Honeydew on the walls. Honeydew on the dog. Honeydew in my hair.

Does anyone know how to clean honeydew juice off velvet curtains? Serious question. I think I’ll ponder the matter over a honeydew margarita.

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Things have not been going as planned lately. Before I dive into yesterday’s fiasco, I’ll tell you that this recipe was supposed to be a curried coconut quinoa dish. The photographed version didn’t turn out quite right, so I’m still working on it.

Secondly, this post was supposed to be published yesterday. I was on track until I realized, with a sudden gasp followed by, “Oh, #$*@!” that my dress—the blue dress I’d shown to all of my friends and the entire internet—was not on its way. Somehow, I didn’t finish placing the order. That’s right, the girl who makes her living on the World Wide Web and stays up late coding a redesigned website and has probably stolen items from your cart while you’re browsing J.Crew’s final sale somehow did not hit the final submit button.

Once I realized what had happened, I was all worked up in a tizzy for a solid twenty minutes. I texted my friends who are going to the party with me for commiseration. I called my mama for sympathy. This post went by the wayside and I ran out the door to go shopping, the whole time fully aware that this would seem like a trivial issue in a few days’ time. In the current moment, however, it mattered.

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Cookie and I zoomed five hours down I-35 to Oklahoma on Monday. When I left, I was still feeling a little sour about being the only single person at last weekend’s Friendsgiving. Sharing that dark drive through Kansas with just my loyal co-pilot and Jad and Rob from Radiolab was pretty nice, though.

This margarita has been on my mind ever since I saw it in Bon Appetit’s November issue, but I didn’t get around to making it until right before I left town. I couldn’t part with such an irresistible cocktail, so I poured it from its gold-rimmed glasses into a decidedly less glamorous pickle jar and stored it in my trunk. It glows at me like pink kryptonite every time I open my parents’ refrigerator.

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