Post #268470 by thejab on Thu, Nov 23, 2006 2:26 PM

Here is my comparison of four store-bought grenadines. I did not compare them to homemade grenadine, which has been discussed before. This is for the lazy folks like myself who would rather buy it premade. I did not include Rose's as it's common knowledge now that it's garbage. And I didn't do a blind taste test, so my judgement may have been biased a bit.

Listed in order of my preference for making cocktails from first to last:

Fee Brothers American Beauty
what I paid: $4.45 for 12.8 fluid ounces
ingredients: corn syrup, sugar, water, nat. and art. flavors, citric acid, benzoate of soda, red #40, blue #1
pomegranate taste: intense
sweetness: very sweet
color: very dark red
viscosity: very thick

Torani Pomegranate Syrup (not labeled as grenadine)
what I paid: can't recall, but it goes for $5.89 for 750ml at BevMo
ingredients: cane sugar, water, nat. flavors, tartaric acid, benzoate of soda, caramel color, red #40
pomegranate taste: strong
sweetness: moderately sweet
color: dark red
viscosity: medium, more viscous than water

Stirrings
what I paid: around $5 for 12 fl oz
ingredients: water, pomegranate juice form concentrate, cane sugar, citric acid, nat flavor, pectin
pomegranate taste: fairly strong
sweetness: medium
color: light to medium red
viscosity: thin

Trader Vic's
what I paid: $4.99 for 750ml
ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, water, nat. and art. flavors, tartaric acid, red #40
pomegranate taste: weak, tastes mostly like vanilla
sweetness: very sweet
color: dark red
viscosity: very thick

In conclusion, I highly recommend Fee Brother's. You can buy it from their web site if it's not available locally. If you need grenadine in a hurry and can't find Fee I would buy Torani and maybe add a bit of simple syrup because it's not as sweet as other grenadines. If you want an all-natural grenadine, buy Stirrings, or better yet make it yourself, but I found that when using Stirrings you may need to double the quantity because it's just too weak. Although I used to use Trader Vic's brand, I can't recommend it anymore because there are better choices out there that don't use high fructose corn syrup exclusively.

I hope I haven't been too redundant with this topic.

Try a Scofflaw Cocktail or Jack Rose today!

[ Edited by: thejab 2006-11-23 14:28 ]