The Jab's grenadine taste-off

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 ]

I've visited Fee Brothers website but all it has is product descriptions but no prices and no way of ordering online. Is there another website where these products can be purchased?

Thanks Jab! The timing of your post was perfect as I just used the last of my TV grenadine last night. Time to track down some Fee Brothers.

GH - Try calling or emailing Fee Brothers. I heard that they take orders by check or money order but not online.

Other grenadines out there that I don't have on hand:

Angostura - I tried a bottle once and liked it but have not seen it in a long time.

Sonoma Syrup Pomegranate Simple Syrup - Dr. Cocktail recommends this one so I need to try some. It's $8 for a 375ml bottle at sonomasyrup.com.

Monin - $7.95 for a 750ml bottle at monin.com

I have a couple of bottles of Williams-Sonoma's grenadine. It's very tasty and I like it quite a bit, but it's thin for a syrup and it doesn't turn your drink as red as you might expect. Give it a try though and let us know what you think of it compared to the others. The only other one I have on hand is Trader Vic's, which I find to be overly sweet and candy-like.

Also, surfasonline.com carries Fee Brothers products. That's where I get their Falernum and orange bitters. I don't see the grandine listed, but they might get it if asked.

[ Edited by: GatorRob 2006-11-24 19:52 ]

Thanks, Jab!

I wonder how grenadine made out of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice would taste in comparison? Here's a thread about POM from about 2+ years back, and good things were said about it.

I'd love to hear The Jab's opinion and comparison (and others' as well) of a homeade grenadine made from POM against those other grenadines. And I've got a great big unopened bottle of POM that I'm willing to contribute to the cause. I'm thinking that since a lot of our other mixers are now being made from scratch, then why not grenadine as well?

November was national pomegranate month. So they had them in the store
fresh. I got one ($2.50) And made grenadine out of it like this.
Cut open pomegranate, Do this over a bowl they bleed like crazy.
Now separate the seed like things from rind stuff.
This is messy. Put the seed like things in a bowl.
You will have about half a cup of seeds. They are like grape seeds. Only red.
Cover seeds with 3/4 cup of sugar. Kind of mash the seeds every now and then.
Set mix in the fridge and cover.
Let set 24 hours. Now heat and stir till a boil.
Set aside and let cool. Strain mix with cheese cloth.
It taste great! But is messy to make.
This will spoil. So keep in the fridge. And use soon.

Somewhere there's a thread in here where I described making grenadine from whole pommegranates. It was very good, but tedious and as Skip mentions, messy. When you use the whole fruit and grind it up, you get some tannins and bitterness in the finished product that really make a very "adult" and full tasting grenadine. But for the effort and cost it is hardly worth it for everyday use.

So my goal since then has been to simply put the pomm back in grenadine. I have used cooked down Pom Wonderful juice as well as other brands, and that works okay. It takes a while to reduce, and the cost is again a bit high per finished bottle.

A taste test comparison between factory grenadine with a low pomm content (or none at all) is certainly night and day. There is simply not one brand that even remotely compares to real pomm flavor and color.

So instead of grinding, mashing, boiling, reducing, etc..

..you can just buy pommegranate concentrate and add it to any decent store brand grenadine (but not Rose's or that thin watery Stirrings stuff) or to sugar syrup. Pomm concentrate is nothing more than cooked down pomm juice. So when you add it to sugar syrup, you get a very high pomm content per finished bottle.

My own preference is to use roughly 2 parts Top Shelf brand grenadine or Torani brand pomm syrup, and add roughly 1 part pomm concentrate and just a little white rum to preserve it. All you do is funnel these ingredients into a fifth bottle and shake it up. The combo of the red food color with the real pomm color is just blood red and rich, and the flavoring mixed with real pomm is top notch.

But sugar syrup works just as well really.

Real pommegranate flavor is so very different from flavor additives both natural and otherwise that there is simply no way to go back to pomm free stuff or low pomm content after that. And luckily the bottle and shake method is so stupid easy that it is unlikely that anyone could reasonably excuse themselves form trying this method based upon the effort required.

Now, a bottle of pommegranate concentrate will set you back about $15, but when you can get around 2-3 fifths or so of solid product out of one bottle, it makes sense.

A fifth of grenadine lasts a while in my house.

Ahu

As I said in my first post my intent of this topic is to compare store-bought grenadines, because homemade has been discussed before in other threads.

One could argue that no bar in the heyday of tiki bars (or before) made their own - I bet they all used bottled grenadine (which I have read isn't strictly pomegranate juice and sugar but for many years has included other flavors as well). So, if you want to get as close as possible to the orginal cocktail recipies homemade may not always be the best way to go. The same has been argued regarding Falernum and Pimento.

Does anyone have any Monin or Angostura to weigh in on?

Martiki don't get mad at me :wink: I think it's great that you make your own for FI.

[ Edited by: thejab 2006-11-28 13:46 ]

you're not allowed back in FI.

oh, who the hell am I kidding? the jab is filling my 401k. Maybe we could just find a way for me to garnish your wages with your employer directly and save us all a little trouble.

I have the Angostura at home, and I think it's pretty good, certainly the best retail one I've ever had. It is no longer available- they stopped their syrup line.

POM is available to food service operators as a concentrate, and I'm trying to get some to save the hassle of reducing regular POM.

I'm much happier with homemade, though I'm working on getting it a little more tart. We use so little of it at FI, it's practically a non-issue.

I recently took my portable bar on the road to a huge party. When I arrived I found I had left my Trader Vics Grenadine (the only brand I use) at home.

When I got to the local liquor store they had about 5 differant brands.
I read the ingrediants and chose "Finest Call", because it was the only one that had pomagranate in it and it comes in a handy pour and store container.

It was pretty good, much better than Roses and some others I have tried.

[ Edited by: captnkirk 2006-11-29 17:29 ]

okay, i've made my own grenadine and it turned out kinda lousy, boiling/reducing the juice left it with too much of a cooked taste.

best grenadine i've had by far was Angostura brand, but havent seen it on a store shelf in years. Stirrings is thin. Master of Mixes is teh suck. Rose's is a joke.

I recently sampled a pungent pomegranite wine (from Armenia). wondering if anybody has subbed a pom wine for grenadine?

Have you tried the cold method for making grenadine? Lots of stirring or shaking required, but a very different flavor profile so I'm told.

I have done cold press for years and have been very happy with the results. The granadine you get using POM juice and cane sugar is brght and tastes like pomagranate. The only issue I had is that homemade cold press does not lend as much color to cocktails as the chemical filled commercial drek does, so if you were trying to match a color hue of a cocktail in a photo sometimes it falls short.

Very recently I started using a middle eastern pomagranate syrup that tastes great and has a but more flavor complexity than homemade, plus it has that intense bright red color that only a little bit of good product chemistry can give you.

I hate to be a contrarian -- actually, I don't :) -- but if one is looking for authenticity in their recipes, using a true pomegranate syrup as grenadine won't give it to you. Grenadine has been nothing more than dyed sugar water since before Prohibition. Makes me think it's unlikely that Don or Vic were using otherwise.

Here's a good example of where I'll choose good over authentic. :)

(And when I make Prohibition-era cocktails I stick with London Dry or Old Tom instead of trying to mix up some homemade Jake-Leg gin. Sometimes authentic isn't all it's cracked up to be. :) )

[ Edited by: Sunny&Rummy 2013-08-19 11:42 ]

delete

[ Edited by: djmont 2014-03-20 09:07 ]

I have 'Old English Grenadine Alcoholic Cordial' & Monin. I also have Bols (unused).

Monin is a bit like strawberry jam. I rate the 'Old English Grenadine Alcoholic Cordial', Im near the bottom, its taken a while about 9 months to drink 70cl!

I intend to make a small batch of hibiscus grenadine per this recipe to compare ( http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=16699 ), hibiscus seems a little more 'tiki'

I've had Monin, Sonoma Syrup Classic Grenadine, Sonoma Syrup Pomegranate Grenadine Simple Syrup, Small Hand Foods Grenadine, "Mid East Pomegranate Molasses", Stirrings, Trader Vic's and Roses grenadines. For my money Small Hand Foods Grenadine is easily the best. Luckily I can sometimes find it at the Cask Store in San Francisco when I'm on my way to Smuggler's Cove.

I often use Finest Call Pomegranate Syrup, which I think is about 11% of the stuff.

By the way, I think an excellent vehicle to test your grenadine is in a Jack Rose; esp with the Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (100 proof)---if it can stand up to that, it's working.

On 2013-08-20 20:56, TropicDrinkBoy wrote:
I've had Monin, Sonoma Syrup Classic Grenadine, Sonoma Syrup Pomegranate Grenadine Simple Syrup, Small Hand Foods Grenadine, "Mid East Pomegranate Molasses", Stirrings, Trader Vic's and Roses grenadines. For my money Small Hand Foods Grenadine is easily the best. Luckily I can sometimes find it at the Cask Store in San Francisco when I'm on my way to Smuggler's Cove.

+1 Small Hand Foods is awesome (for everything - try their Pineapple Gum syrup in a pina colada - turns pineapple/coconut haters into your new best friend)

I have heard the Small Hands pineapple gomme makes a killer Pisco Punch. I finally found some gum arabic and ha e been meaning to make some pineapple gomme syrup but haven't gotten to it yet.

here's another lazy man's grenadine i'm trying out:

bought a bottle of Monin pomegranite syrup, added a teaspoon of orange flower water, shook it up. not bad, still a bit tart though. but better than the corn-syrupy 'grenadines' available in stores around here...

For simplicity sake...

1/2 Monin Pomegranate Syrup + 1/2 Monin Grenadine Syrup = Go to....

I'd like to add another suggestion.

I really like Routin 1883 syrups.

I use their:
Pomegranate
Orgeat
and Lavender

They use really good ingredients, are affordable, and work very well in cocktails.

Oxy, if I ever stumble across the Monin grenadine i will give that a whirl (after trying the grenadine itself first).

Destro- have never seen that brand before. checked their website, says their grenadine is a blend of berries and vanilla...

Hey Porpoise and all,

I'm not sure where you got that description for Routin Grenadine. Maybe there are a few slightly different products. I've attached some pictures of the actual pomegranate syrup.

Check out the ingredients: Cane sugar (no high fructose), water, and pomegranate juice are the first three. Then elderberry (actually listed as 10%).

In addition, check out how their orgeat did in a little face-off - http://professorcocktail.com/ingredients/taste-test-orgeat-almond-syrup/

I hope that clears things up.

I make my own grenadine out of store-bought Pom Wonderful, which has no ingredients besides juice concentrate. I put it in a pot, add an equal amount of sugar, stir over medium heat until dissolved, and bottle. Works great. No figuring out which commercial brand is better-tasting and no messy seeding of pomegranates. I'd love to taste some made from a fresh pomegranate, though.

TorchGuy, I'll do the same during those months when fresh pomegranates aren't available. For each 8oz. Pom (or fresh-squeezed juice) I add 1 oz. pomegranate molasses and 1/4 tsp. orange blossom water which, I think, makes for a richer grenadine. I use Cortas brand for both ingredients.

Great username!

Come across this today. Notice anything missing?

JMF from Chowhound's recipe for cold press, it is fantastic

To make 1 quart. 2.5 cups POM, 2.5 cups cane sugar, 1 oz. Lemon juice, .25 - .5 oz. Orange Blossom water (If fresh, .25, more if old since it loses potency once opened.)

Never buy the cheap stuff again

If you get the Pom at Costco it is only $10, the sugar and orange flower water is a one time investment