From a Sweet Pomegranate to This: Grenadine

It is not long after one dives into a collection of cocktail recipes, or drinking for that matter, when you inevitably come across today’s ingredient du jour: grenadine. A far cry from the origins as a sweetened pomegranate juice these days a number of people are looking back in time to what a great syrup grenadine used to be and reintroducing the syrup to its old glory.   There are a number of cocktails that call for this syrup to sweeten and colour the beverage, and with the complexity of old style grenadine it adds layers of flavour the modern day imposters can only dream about offering.

As with a number of things in history, the history of grenadine is often debated. Grenadine came from Grenada; oh no wait Grenada was only named Grenada due to its shape resembling a pomegranate. (Grenade being the French and Spanish word for pomegranate.) Pomegranates are from the Mediterranean…. oh whatever, this syrup goes great with orange juice and tequila!

Once a pomegranate based syrup, nowadays it is highly probable that the commercially produced product grenadine contains no actual pomegranate juice at all. Possibly in pursuit of an easier production method, or maybe in the interest of profit today’s grenadine often has food colouring, a variety of sweetening options and some preservatives for shelf stability. It is not difficult to make your own grenadine at home, and that my friends is what we have done.

A variety of spices or other ingredients can be added to adapt the flavour to your own specifications, but today we are focusing on the basic grenadine syrup that adds the tart notes of traditional grenadine as opposed to the sugar heavy varieties of today.

Ingredients & Instructions:

Equal parts white sugar and pomegranate juice

Mix or heat and stir until fully dissolved.

Let cool in the fridge overnight.

As you can see taking grenadine back a few generations is not all that complicated to do. If enough people take on the task of producing this combination of sweet, tart and spice themselves, our commercially available varieties may one day shift to suit demand. Until that time those hopeless romantics yearning for a grenadine gone by will have to toil in their basements, or kitchens, to take pleasure in the little known (ok, well known by now) secret complexity of traditional grenadine.