If you aren’t going to make your own, liber and co has a grenadine as part of their catalog. It is quite good. I’ve not gone to make my own but may - liber and co is local for me here in Austin.
I'm going to be honest - most of the make-it-yourself recipes are basically 2:1 simple syrup recipes. With water swapped for pom juice. Which might as well be 99% simple.
If you want the real stuff, you need to take a very large amount of juice and remove the water. Seeing as I cant find any recipes to do that, I assume its not easily possible. That leaves store bought.
What if get some Pomegranate molasses and use like honey when making a homey syrup? I think that would get the results you are talking about with doing the concentrating of the pomegranate juice yourself on the stove top.
maybe nobody tried yet 🤷 seems like it’d work the same as a balsamic reduction, low heat sub-simmer for several hours til at the desired volume.
> In a pot on the stove top, simmer the juice concentrate until reduced by 1/3 (1 container of juice should reduce down to 1 cup), about 10 minutes
(or maybe even faster)
https://nomnomnomblog.com/2011/03/07/reduce-the-juice/
would one 48 oz bottle reduced to 1 cup then sugar 2:1 be sufficiently concentrated dyou think? I might try.
I've done the math. To get the same sugar concentration as 2:1 simple syrup, you need a 4.5x reduction. Or 22% by volume as where you started. 1:1 simple would be 33% of original volume. To avoid burning at that concentration, I would probably do a slow cooker.
I've obviously given this a great deal of thought. Best of luck.
me too now 👌 is that with added sugar or just reducing the total volume relative to the existing sugar content? 22% or ~~10 oz should be ok on the stovetop. I do believe I will try it.
It's easy to make yourself, although I've also been perfectly happy with any commercial one that's actually mostly made of pomegranate. Grenadine isn't really that hard to get right—Rose's is really just a master class in fucking it up.
After making my own to compare, it’s clear that Rose’s uses a simulated orange blossom flavor and then of course it’s mostly high fructose corn syrup. It’s a master class in cost savings for sure.
The ingredients list sure is something:
High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Red 40, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Blue 1.
Liber and Co is the source for all of my syrups that I don't make myself.
The ones I buy the most :
grenadine/passionfruit/orgeat/fiery ginger
Yes, I know there are easy to follow recipes for all of these....I'm just lazy and I like how long their syrups last in the fridge
Ginger beer replacement (I can carbonate drinks via my Drinkmate) for mules
There's a Suze drink I've recently learned of called Gentian and Ginger (only drink I like Suze in so far)
a couple of tiki drinks whose names escape me right now. It's definitely used less than the other three but a bit more than the other Liber and Co syrups for me.
Make ginger syrup ala Jeffery morganthaller , so goood.
It’s just equal part ginger, sugar and hot water into the blender, blend till smooth and then through cheese cloth.
I find that boiling the sugar + water together first, then adding to the ginger provides a product that’s more stable, as the heat sort of cooks the ginger slightly.
It also depends the volume ur making, like are you making 1L or 100ml , since the smaller batch you make, the faster it cools.
I hear good things about this recipe: [https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-your-own-grenadine-760291](https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-your-own-grenadine-760291)
You can use PomWonderful or a similar 100% pomegranate juice to avoid having to squeeze your own pomegranates. You can also easily adjust the sugar content to suit your own taste.
100% second the make at home suggestions. Not only is it easy, but it's way cheaper and way tastier. Just get a bottle of Pom, dissolve equal parts sugar. That's it. A few bucks, a few minutes, and viola - delicious grenadine.
Most of the recipes say to add rose water as well, but I can’t be fucked to get a whole bottle of rose water just to use a few drops. So I add 5-6 healthy dashes of orange bitters instead. Just enough to give it a little complexity.
Yeah, I find the rose water optional - but to each their own. If you have it and orange flower water, you can at least make orgeat too, so I suppose getting those ingredients has its perks.
I made the death and co recipe last week. Basically just Pom wonderful, cane sugar, a splash of orange blossom water (d&C use a spice mix I can’t get ahold of instead) and some citric and malic acid.
It’s yummy.
Which recipe are you using? I have their first book and it uses Pom juice, Pom molasses, orange peel, and cane sugar only. The addition of a spice mix sounds intriguing but also off-spec for what it’s supposed to taste like.
Cocktail codex. No molasses or orange peel. Their description says they were trying to make it Rose-like without being gross
- 250 g Pom wonderful
- 250 g cane sugar
- 1.85 g malic acid
- 1.25 g citric acid
- 0.15 g terra spice orange extract (I used a splash of orange blossom water)
off spec time! Once you've got the main grenadine down.. a fun riff I've done is to do orange peel, cinnamon stick, a star anise pod and substitute a 1/4-1/2 of the pom juice for pinot noir (depends on the pinot I've found, I imagine other wines may also be a good fit)
Liber and Co. It's amazing.
You can make some yourself. The pomegranate juice and the sugar is easy enough. But pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water are more difficult to find.
Just juice and sugar is a step up from Rose's, but I think Liber and Co has such amazing syrups, including this one.
I'm a big fan of Small Hands Grenadine. I got turned to them about 15 years ago when the cocktail thing started to hit and I saw a recipe for a cocktail at a bar in San Francisco (Comstock Saloon). It called for Small Hands Pineape Gomme Syrup. Freaking delicious. So whenever I nerd something they make, I try them first and I've never been let down.
Love the Pineapple Gum (it's how they spell it on the bottle) syrup from them, but have been hesitant to try their grenadine because they don't use orange blossom water.
I also found their orgeat not sweet enough, which throws off the balance of drinks. I remember looking it up because I kept making an Infante and had way too much tart/lime flavor.
Small Hands orgeat has 12g / oz while Liber & Co has 20g/oz
If you extra sweet grenadine, it's easy to make your own.
1 part pomegranate juice, 2 parts sugar by weight. Heat over the stove on low and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. The finer the sugar you use, the faster it will dissolve. Let it cool and store it in a sanitized bottle. It's shelf stable and should be good for at least 6 months - probably a lot longer. If you made too much, you can freeze the extra.
2:1 is also the historical method (no bar refrigeration in the 1890’s), so it’s useful for golden age recipes. The fact it lasts basically indefinitely just sitting on a shelf is a big benefit, I make all my syrups 2:1 if I can. I also find the addition of orange blossom water essential, it completely transforms the flavour profile.
Making your own allows you to tune it to your tastes. Starting with a commercial pomegranate juice such as POM lowers the effort bar and is just fine. Liber & Co is the way to go otherwise, IMO.
All of Rose's products are garbage - colored sugar water.
I don't mean it in a cocktail-snob way, but Grenadine is so easy to make. (So is lime cordial.)
As others have said, it's basically simple syrup made with Pom juice.
I made it once with fresh using pomegranates, which are easy to juice - just kind of messy. I *believe* that I used Jeffrey Morganthaler's recipe.
If you aren’t going to make your own, liber and co has a grenadine as part of their catalog. It is quite good. I’ve not gone to make my own but may - liber and co is local for me here in Austin.
100% on Liber & Co
I'm going to be honest - most of the make-it-yourself recipes are basically 2:1 simple syrup recipes. With water swapped for pom juice. Which might as well be 99% simple. If you want the real stuff, you need to take a very large amount of juice and remove the water. Seeing as I cant find any recipes to do that, I assume its not easily possible. That leaves store bought.
What if get some Pomegranate molasses and use like honey when making a homey syrup? I think that would get the results you are talking about with doing the concentrating of the pomegranate juice yourself on the stove top.
could you not just reduce on stovetop?
> Seeing as I cant find any recipes to do that, I assume its not easily possible.
maybe nobody tried yet 🤷 seems like it’d work the same as a balsamic reduction, low heat sub-simmer for several hours til at the desired volume. > In a pot on the stove top, simmer the juice concentrate until reduced by 1/3 (1 container of juice should reduce down to 1 cup), about 10 minutes (or maybe even faster) https://nomnomnomblog.com/2011/03/07/reduce-the-juice/ would one 48 oz bottle reduced to 1 cup then sugar 2:1 be sufficiently concentrated dyou think? I might try.
I've done the math. To get the same sugar concentration as 2:1 simple syrup, you need a 4.5x reduction. Or 22% by volume as where you started. 1:1 simple would be 33% of original volume. To avoid burning at that concentration, I would probably do a slow cooker. I've obviously given this a great deal of thought. Best of luck.
me too now 👌 is that with added sugar or just reducing the total volume relative to the existing sugar content? 22% or ~~10 oz should be ok on the stovetop. I do believe I will try it.
That is reducing the water content so it is 85 calories per fl oz - same as simple syrup.
It's easy to make yourself, although I've also been perfectly happy with any commercial one that's actually mostly made of pomegranate. Grenadine isn't really that hard to get right—Rose's is really just a master class in fucking it up.
After making my own to compare, it’s clear that Rose’s uses a simulated orange blossom flavor and then of course it’s mostly high fructose corn syrup. It’s a master class in cost savings for sure.
The ingredients list sure is something: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Red 40, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Blue 1.
Liber and Co is the source for all of my syrups that I don't make myself. The ones I buy the most : grenadine/passionfruit/orgeat/fiery ginger Yes, I know there are easy to follow recipes for all of these....I'm just lazy and I like how long their syrups last in the fridge
What do you use the ginger for? I’m a heavy user/lover of the first 3 you listed, so makes me curious for what I’m missing out on!
Ginger beer replacement (I can carbonate drinks via my Drinkmate) for mules There's a Suze drink I've recently learned of called Gentian and Ginger (only drink I like Suze in so far) a couple of tiki drinks whose names escape me right now. It's definitely used less than the other three but a bit more than the other Liber and Co syrups for me.
Make ginger syrup ala Jeffery morganthaller , so goood. It’s just equal part ginger, sugar and hot water into the blender, blend till smooth and then through cheese cloth. I find that boiling the sugar + water together first, then adding to the ginger provides a product that’s more stable, as the heat sort of cooks the ginger slightly. It also depends the volume ur making, like are you making 1L or 100ml , since the smaller batch you make, the faster it cools.
How long do they tend to last for you? I mostly make my own syrups for cost reasons, but am open to other options if the shelf life is really good
Over a year, but I do keep them in my fridge. They aren't sitting on a bar cart.
Got it haha yeah, by "shelf life" I fully meant fridge life 😅
I hear good things about this recipe: [https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-your-own-grenadine-760291](https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-your-own-grenadine-760291) You can use PomWonderful or a similar 100% pomegranate juice to avoid having to squeeze your own pomegranates. You can also easily adjust the sugar content to suit your own taste.
Morganthaler’s recipe. I’d link but can’t right now.
100% second the make at home suggestions. Not only is it easy, but it's way cheaper and way tastier. Just get a bottle of Pom, dissolve equal parts sugar. That's it. A few bucks, a few minutes, and viola - delicious grenadine.
Most of the recipes say to add rose water as well, but I can’t be fucked to get a whole bottle of rose water just to use a few drops. So I add 5-6 healthy dashes of orange bitters instead. Just enough to give it a little complexity.
Yeah, I find the rose water optional - but to each their own. If you have it and orange flower water, you can at least make orgeat too, so I suppose getting those ingredients has its perks.
Good idea
I made the death and co recipe last week. Basically just Pom wonderful, cane sugar, a splash of orange blossom water (d&C use a spice mix I can’t get ahold of instead) and some citric and malic acid. It’s yummy.
Which recipe are you using? I have their first book and it uses Pom juice, Pom molasses, orange peel, and cane sugar only. The addition of a spice mix sounds intriguing but also off-spec for what it’s supposed to taste like.
Cocktail codex. No molasses or orange peel. Their description says they were trying to make it Rose-like without being gross - 250 g Pom wonderful - 250 g cane sugar - 1.85 g malic acid - 1.25 g citric acid - 0.15 g terra spice orange extract (I used a splash of orange blossom water)
Thanks! Not sure if I’ll ever use it but I had no idea they had a different spec published.
off spec time! Once you've got the main grenadine down.. a fun riff I've done is to do orange peel, cinnamon stick, a star anise pod and substitute a 1/4-1/2 of the pom juice for pinot noir (depends on the pinot I've found, I imagine other wines may also be a good fit)
This sounds interesting
Liber and Co. It's amazing. You can make some yourself. The pomegranate juice and the sugar is easy enough. But pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water are more difficult to find. Just juice and sugar is a step up from Rose's, but I think Liber and Co has such amazing syrups, including this one.
I'm a big fan of Small Hands Grenadine. I got turned to them about 15 years ago when the cocktail thing started to hit and I saw a recipe for a cocktail at a bar in San Francisco (Comstock Saloon). It called for Small Hands Pineape Gomme Syrup. Freaking delicious. So whenever I nerd something they make, I try them first and I've never been let down.
Glad you recommended them. Liber is good, but I prefer Small Hands.
Love the Pineapple Gum (it's how they spell it on the bottle) syrup from them, but have been hesitant to try their grenadine because they don't use orange blossom water. I also found their orgeat not sweet enough, which throws off the balance of drinks. I remember looking it up because I kept making an Infante and had way too much tart/lime flavor. Small Hands orgeat has 12g / oz while Liber & Co has 20g/oz
Not sure if you can get it in the US but Teisseire is a good alternative to home-made.
If you extra sweet grenadine, it's easy to make your own. 1 part pomegranate juice, 2 parts sugar by weight. Heat over the stove on low and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. The finer the sugar you use, the faster it will dissolve. Let it cool and store it in a sanitized bottle. It's shelf stable and should be good for at least 6 months - probably a lot longer. If you made too much, you can freeze the extra.
2:1 is also the historical method (no bar refrigeration in the 1890’s), so it’s useful for golden age recipes. The fact it lasts basically indefinitely just sitting on a shelf is a big benefit, I make all my syrups 2:1 if I can. I also find the addition of orange blossom water essential, it completely transforms the flavour profile.
I'll try adding orange blossom water next time.
Making your own allows you to tune it to your tastes. Starting with a commercial pomegranate juice such as POM lowers the effort bar and is just fine. Liber & Co is the way to go otherwise, IMO.
Make and Drink on Youtube compares homemade and storebought, including Rose’s.
All of Rose's products are garbage - colored sugar water. I don't mean it in a cocktail-snob way, but Grenadine is so easy to make. (So is lime cordial.) As others have said, it's basically simple syrup made with Pom juice. I made it once with fresh using pomegranates, which are easy to juice - just kind of messy. I *believe* that I used Jeffrey Morganthaler's recipe.
# Le Sirop de Monin
Make it yourself with some pomegranate juice and sugar.
Making your own is the only answer