#Vodka grapefruit manual

Again, use a yellow variety here for balance.Īnd speaking of easy, a great drink to bust out at a gathering for a lot of people is the Paloma, pretty much the only “cocktail” you’ll find in Mexico. It is another simple and elegant concoction, calling for rye whiskey, grapefruit ,and either grenadine or, even better, fresh raspberry syrup.

#Vodka grapefruit manual

The drink was first mentioned in Patrick Gavin Duffy’s 1934 The Official Mixer’s Manual and was resurrected in Ted Haigh’s wonderful Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. That also goes for a rather unknown but delicious cocktail called the Blinker. I’m a big fan of the simplicity of this drink, but it can err on the sweet side if made with pink grapefruit juice. While the ruby is a little sweeter and a favorite of bartenders, the yellow variety (also known as white grapefruit) has more acid and can actually work better in balancing out sugary components.Ī case in point is the Brown Derby, which was perhaps created at the famous hat-shaped Los Angeles restaurant of the same name. Right now, grapefruits are in season, and their color, especially in the highly coveted Ruby Red type, is deep and inviting. While the history of this recipe is far from certain, it’s about as cooling as drinks come and perfect for parties. One only has to turn to the Hemingway Daiquiri-an august libation, to be sure-to see what a delightful ingredient grapefruit juice can be. While lemon and lime are our preferred bartending citrus, the grapefruit has lent its own unique charms to a wide variety of wonderful and timeless drinks. The name comes from the fact that fruit clusters on the tree look somewhat similar to a bunch of grapes. It’s one of the newer fruits on Earth, having been first discovered on the island of Barbados in the mid-18th century. Known technically as Citrus x paradisi, grapefruit is most likely a cross between the Southeast Asian pummelo and the standard sweet orange.

But while the terms 'unusual' and 'esoteric' have become part of cocktail vernacular, there’s no shame in keeping things simple.

Drinks that tend to garner attention these days contain all kinds of exciting ingredients, like jackfruit, dragonfruit, passion fruit, or my all-time favorite, Ugli fruit. To the many cocktail aficionados reading this, the humble grapefruit might seem like a rudimentary, even boring, piece of fruit.