The Basics: Make your own Grenadine!

22Feb/100

To a lot of people, grenadine is a mystical red syrup with the mystical power to transform drinks. Most of us just buy our grenadine at the store, and that's alright. But, if you really want to taste what grenadine is meant to be the only way is to make it yourself.

First some fascinating facts that probably aren't true! (because I found them on wikipedia) The word grenadine is actually derived from the french word for grenade which is their word for pomegranate. ( French speakers: if this is inaccurate please feel free to kiss my ass and/or or leave me lots of angry comments in french)

Most people are going to be satisfied with the usual grenadine: "Rose's grenadine". Actually "satisfied" is the wrong word because Rose's is the only choice on most store shelves. What you have, my friend, is grenadine slavery. Slavery to the bland taste of artificial flavoring and high fructose corn syrup! BEHOLD! THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! You can make your own grenadine at home! It's as easy as mixing P.O.M. juice (who still isn't paying me for all this free promotion) and superfine sugar.

By volume it's not even much of a price difference to make authentic grenadine yourself and it tastes SO much better! No bullshit folks. If you've never tasted it fresh then you haven't tasted it. Your old red #40 dyed Rose's will taste totally bland by comparison. But you don't want to take the easy route, right? You're like me, a complete and total glutton for punishment, and rather than doing things the easy way you want to make your Grenadine completely from scratch with REAL GRENADES...or pomegranates as it were. (Slightly less explosive)

Here's what you'll need: 2 Pomegranates, 2 cups of granulated sugar, 2 cups water

First things first, you have to get the seeds out of the pomegranates. I learned the hard way that this is much easier said than done. My first idea was to beat the pomegranate on the table for several minutes to dislodge all those little bastards, no dice. This resulted in a horror movie on my kitchen table when I finally tried to cut it open. When you cut it open you're not going to be able to avoid at least some spillage either way, but my drunken-cave-man-with-a-coconut-method is not the ideal way to begin. Instead try putting half of the pomegranate into a deep bowl of water and popping the seeds out that way. The seeds sink while the membrane of the fruit (that off-white stuff holding the seed) will float.

This is what you'll end up with. It doesn't look like a lot but its more than enough to make your grenadine. You'll need about two whole fruits for this much. Don't worry about getting the juice out of the fruity-seed thing. That will happen naturally once you boil it.

Next step is to boil equal parts sugar and water to make a simple syrup. Once you've got the sugar stirred in add your pomegranate seeds and give it another stir. You're going to want to boil this quite awhile: thirty minutes or more, depending on how strong you want your grenadine to be.

After it cools off, strain out the seeds and bottle it. It should keep for at least a few weeks. Or if you're like me and wish everything in your fridge had the shelf life of canned-corn, add some vodka and it should extend the shelf life much further.