A Salty Dog

A Salty Dog is a highball composed of grapefruit juice, salt, and vodka (some recipes call for gin). Many contemporary versions call for the liquid ingredients to be mixed with ice (either in a shaker, then strained into an ice-filled glass, or built directly in the serving glass), and for the drink to be served in a glass with a salted rim (a sugar-salt mix is sometimes used). A relative of the Greyhound (essentially the same drink prepared without salt), the Salty Dog has roots that stretch back to 1916, when American soldiers stationed at Eagle Pass, Texas, during the conflict with Pancho Villa were drinking a mixture of lime juice, salt, and carbonated water under that name. See Rickey. By the late 1930s, Texans had replaced the lime juice and soda with a healthy slug of white grapefruit juice (usually canned) and stiffened the drink up with a shot of gin. This version soon caught on nationwide, gaining a well-earned reputation as a hot-weather refresher. In the early 1950s, vodka began to edge out the gin, as it was doing in various other drinks. As a vodka drink, the Salty Dog was broadly popular through the 1970s and is still encountered, although usually with the sweeter (and less refreshing) pink grapefruit juice.

Recipe: Combine 60 ml vodka or gin, 120–180 ml grapefruit juice, to taste, and a pinch of kosher salt in an ice-filled highball glass and stir to combine.

See also Highball.

“El Paso Beer Depot” (advertisement). El Paso (TX) Herald-Post, June 24, 1938.

“Have a Salty Dog.” Cincinnati Post, July 18. 1916, 1.

Knowlton, Andrew. “The Salty Dog.” Bon Appétit website, June 8, 2010. http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/the-salty-dog (accessed March 10, 2021).

O’Reilly, Peggy. “Few Here Know a ‘Salty Dog’ but Texans Use ‘Em to Cool Off.” Brooklyn Eagle, August 26, 1951, 8.

By: Paul Clarke and David Wondrich