On paper, the Salmoncito looks like the byproduct of international cocktail diplomacy. The gin is a London dry from England, the Campari from Italy. Tonic water and grapefruit, the two ingredients that finalize the recipe, are used with abandon in drinks across the globe. And yet, many consider the pink-hued highball just as Mexican in spirit as classic bedfellows like the Paloma or Margarita.
“A modern clásico? It’s easy to make, easy to drink, easy to sell—I guess you could call it that,” says Khristian de la Torre, who invented the cocktail in 2013. Its inception happened by way of kismet—de la Torre was celebrating his 29th birthday by drinking Gin & Tonics with a friend who gave him a Japanese knife as a gift. “I wanted to try my new knife, so I took the grapefruit and started to cut it in different shapes and sizes,” de la Torre recalls. “The Gin & Tonic needed some color, some action, so I added some Campari. The color was amazing, a kind of salmon-pink color. It was something new, something adventurous.”
The bittersweet refresher debuted shortly thereafter on the menu at absinthe bar Maison Artemisia, where de la Torre worked at the time. It was an instant hit. “They paid the bills with that income,” he jokes, describing how it proved so popular that he took the drink with him to subsequent bartending gigs in Mexico City and the Bahamas, and as far away as Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
“I remember someone saying that it sold, like, a million pesos in its first year,” says Pedro Reyes, Mexico City–based author, journalist and academy chair for The World’s 50 Best Bars. “Soon other bars started to replicate the drink, not only in Mexico City, but in other bars across the country and even beyond Mexico’s borders.” For him, “there’s no other Mexican cocktail in the past 20 years that could fit in the category” of Mexican modern classics.
As de la Torre suggests, the Salmoncito rose to popularity in part because of its simplicity. Like the Michelada or Margarita, it is the perfect example of cocktail gestalt, in which a few straightforward ingredients come together to create something much more complex than their individual components. Its thirst-quenching qualities, effortless drinkability and subtle balance are undeniable, says Reyes. “It is a fresh drink that suits our climate appropriately. You can drink one or 10. Also, it has a kind of universal charm; it is not a Mexican cocktail by definition, but one that could easily be made anywhere.”
With a piquant punch of juniper, honeyed orange kiss of Campari, and punctuating sharpness from the quinine-laced tonic water, the cocktail’s bitter qualities make it an outlier in the Mexican aperitivo category. “Mexican palates are not used to these tasting profiles. Our aperitivo is tequila, mezcal, Micheladas, acidity, smokiness. Not bitterness,” Reyes says, adding that the cocktail is really more of an industry drink versus a mainstream hit. Yet because of the drink’s seamless balance between sweetness, acidity and bitterness—“a natural bitterness, not an invasive one”—it serves as a compelling representation of, and bridge toward, the growing swath of complex, bitter cocktails being served at many new-school Mexico City cocktail bars. “Even if the hype goes away, I think Salmoncito will stand the test of time,” says Reyes.
A decade after its debut, this has already proven to be the case. Audrey Hands, the current beverage director at Maison Artemisia, says that at one point, the cocktail was taken off the menu, but guests continued to order it anyway, earning it a permanent home in the “house classics” section. This is also the case at Gin Gin and Café Tacobar, the former a bar where de la Torre once worked, and the latter where he is currently an owner. “It is definitely a favorite, and in our top three most-sold cocktails at the bar,” says Hands.
As the Salmoncito has traveled far and wide, riffs have popped up in Mexico and beyond. At Il Corso restaurant in Palm Springs, Select liqueur stands in for Campari and the tonic is dropped entirely—the drink is served up and garnished with a dehydrated blood orange wheel. A deep dive through Instagram also reveals a “Royal” version of the drink, which adds sparkling wine to the original spec, suggested by Mexican gin brand Sexto Abismo.
For the most part, though, the drink’s formula remains untouched as it spreads to other cities and countries. For de la Torre, it’s flattering to see the cocktail continue to endure. “Sometimes I receive emails or messages asking for permission to put it on menús. I always said yes,” he says. “It feels good, even when they [change] the recipe. No problema. Do whatever you feel with it.”
The name, which loosely translates to “little salmon,” comes from the garnish, which is a supremed grapefruit wedge lodged between ice cubes. “It looks like a fish swimming on the rocks of a river,” says de la Torre. Reyes—who enjoys eating the flavorful, gin-soaked grapefruit after draining the glass—takes the metaphor a step further. “It is a symbol of the salmon that swims against the current,” he says. “I’ve always thought of it as Khris’ own personal history, and in some way, of every citizen of this country. Always swimming against the current. That makes it Mexican.”
