Recipe: The Palermo Cocktail

If you spend time with or are even remotely associated with a writer, you must know you are fair game for material. My husband of almost 15 years knows this all too well, and this week’s happy hour proves it once again.

Though I had never seen a blood orange until I was in my twenties and in culinary school, my half-Sicilian husband has been eating them since he was a kid. A few years back, we visited his Sicilian family and I was ecstatic to find they had blood orange groves right in their back yard.

I usually cut blood oranges into segments for salads or just eat them as a snack, but this week, I found that mixing their juice with tequila and topping the glass with blood orange soda makes for a happy uniting of nations and one delicious cocktail.

This cocktail is inspired by the beloved Paloma cocktail, a concoction of tequila, grapefruit juice, fresh squeezed lime and Jarritos (grapefruit soda). My version gets a Sicilian makeover blood oranges as its influence. It’s every blood orange lover’s perfect sip — a squeeze of fresh blood orange juice really completes the picture if you have it, but blood orange soda is also makes a delicious cocktail on its own.

Here’s to mixing cultures in your cocktail shaker, a fabulous happy hour in less than 10-minutes, and happily ever after.