By David Clough
Photographs by Robert Lerma and Eric Medsker

Hot summer days call for cold, refreshing drinks. One of our recent favorites is an elegant cocktail named the Lonesome Dove. It’s a creation by The Roosevelt Room, an upscale bar in downtown Austin. The recipe is simple enough that you can make this eye-catching (and delicious) drink at home, but if you want to leave things to the professionals, head over to the Warehouse District and the bartenders at The Roosevelt Room will be happy to make you one.

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The Lonesome Dove is based on the Paloma, a mixed drink traditionally made with tequila, lime juice and grapefruit soda. Paloma means “dove” in Spanish. According to The Roosevelt Room, the cocktail is named after a restaurant up the street, which shares its name with Larry McMurtry’s famous Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

The idea to name the drink after a neighboring business started with the Vendôme Club, a posh, celebrity-filled restaurant from the 1930s. Vendôme made a variant of the De Rigueur cocktail and named it after a neighboring diner, the Brown Derby. The Roosevelt Room carries on the tradition with Lonesome Dove.

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Here’s the recipe for Lonesome Dove. Try it at home on a hot summer’s day:

Lonesome Dove

Ingredients:

1.5 ounces of blanco tequila

1 ounce of grapefruit juice

.5 ounce of lime juice

.5 ounce of cinnamon syrup

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

A small pinch of Himalayan salt

Directions:

1. Build ingredients in a cocktail shaker

2. Shake for 5 seconds, then strain over crushed ice in a hurricane glass

3. Insert a long straw and top with crushed ice

4. Garnish with a red rose petal, 3 sprays of rose water and powdered cinnamon