Fresh Red VS. Bottle White Grapefruit

It's my understanding that white grapefruit juice is the most desirable type for use in tiki drinks, and it goes without saying that fresh anything is better than prepackaged anything, but which of those 2 factors is most important?

Let's say that the only fresh grapefruits available near me are red, but there's any ample supply of bottled white grapefruit juice at hand. Which would I be better off using? For what it's worth, the bottled stuff is not from concentrate and the ingredients label lists cold-pressed juice and nothing else.

[ Edited by: PalmtreePat 2014-12-04 21:11 ]

I was using Pink/red grapefruit juice in my rum barrels because I could not my mitts on the white. I found some “pure” white grapefruit juice in the unrefrigerated juice section of my local super recently and I find it far superior in a rum barrel. Fwiw.
Cheers

The flavor profile between red and white grapefruit is such that I wouldn't consider them interchangeable in a drink. The Purple Orchid makes a drink with ruby grapefruit juice and it's not high on my list. I had a conversation about this with a mixologist recently, and his advice is to use a dash of grapefruit bitters if you are using anything other than fresh squeezed white grapefruit juice; it adds to the brightness of the juice.

On 2014-12-05 09:20, KrakenHunterSteve wrote:
The flavor profile between red and white grapefruit is such that I wouldn't consider them interchangeable in a drink. The Purple Orchid makes a drink with ruby grapefruit juice and it's not high on my list. I had a conversation about this with a mixologist recently, and his advice is to use a dash of grapefruit bitters if you are using anything other than fresh squeezed white grapefruit juice; it adds to the brightness of the juice.

I've used a dash or two of grapefruit bitters to my Navy Grogs and found it to be a nice addition

Sounds like my best bet is to grab that bottled white and throw in a dash of grapefruit bitters. Thanks for the advice everyone.

Always use white.

Back when all these drinks were invented, the only grapefruit was white. And in taste tests, it is nearly unanimous that white is better than pink and especially Ruby Red. But the others are marketed better and so white went away.

It is rare to find fresh ones in the stores. Here we get it once a year in the late fall.

I use Ocean Spray white grapefruit, and have used others just fine. Some swear you must only use what you get in a carton in the refrigerated section. I don't feel that way.

The stuff in little cans I have found to be rather awful.

I always end up buying a bottle of white grapefruit juice at my local grocers. I don't have the patience nor desire to buy a fresh grapefruit and juice it. Any "big bottle" type juices I don't squeeze fresh (orange, pineapple, grapefruit), though limes and lemons I do. The grapefruit juice is usually such a small part of my avg drinks I make that I'm totally okay with passing on a fresh squeezed.

Thanks for starting this thread. For a long time I avoided recipes that called for grapefruit juice because I'm not a huge fan of the taste and fresh white grapefruit seems hard to find around here. I've made quite a few Mai Kai Rum Barrels at home over the years and always use pineapple instead of grapefruit which makes for a great drink but recently was curious to try a few new drinks that either called for Don's Mix or white grapefruit juice so I searched for the cold carton kind and couldn't find any. Settled for the generic bottled 100% juice variety (didn't see Ocean Spray brand). I find that if I use half of whatever the recipe calls for I enjoy the drink a lot better. I'm not sure if that's a product of the bottled kind having a different flavor than fresh squeezed but if I use the full amount it's all I taste in the drink no matter how many ingredients are in it. I even revisited the Rum Barrel with half the grapefruit recently and it was a very well balanced and tasty drink.

Curious about this grapefruit bitters method. So would one dash of that be an adequate substitute for 1 oz of grapefruit or are you saying to add it in addition to the juice to enhance the flavor?

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2014-12-05 11:57 ]

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2014-12-05 11:59 ]

It was my impression that the grapefruit bitters was to be added to the juice to refresh the flavor of the juice.

Even her in Florida we only get fresh white grapefruits for a very short period so I have fully embraced the Ocean Spray bottled stuff. I agree those little cans of white juice (Bluebird is the brand I think) are usually horrible. The juice always seems badly oxidized and old and gray. I would love to find the Ocean Spray product in small cans because of the convenience.

I really like most Tiki drinks that call for white grapefruit juice but I agree that it can overpower other ingredients. Interestingly I don't feel that way about the Reverb Crash in which the majority of the volume of the drink is grapefruit drink. Man, that is a seriously great drink!

I'm surprised that you wouldn't have a longer season with white grapefruit in Florida. Oro Blancos just came back in season out here in California (a month or two early).

I tend to juice about three at a time, and refrigerate what I don't use right away. The bitters helps refresh the flavor when it flattens in the fridge. It will also help with store-bought. I would just assume a dash per drink, but you can always add more. This is subjective, and you may not notice the difference. If you ever get fresh squeezed, do a taste test against store bought.

The reverb crash is easy to drink because it has a lot of passion fruit syrup in it. I like making it without, but then I really enjoy the flavor of white grapefruit.

I like the pink/red grapefruit better, so to each his own.

My first post on Tiki Central - hello everyone!

I wanted to jump in to say that I've been using the Tropicana Pure Premium Golden Grapefruit that they stock in the chilled section of my local Fairway. While not as fresh as anything you squeeze, I've yet to see anything other than Ruby Grapefruits in the supermarket, and I think the Tropicana stands up equally as well as the Dole Pineapple Juice from the same chilled cabinet. (You can also order it on Fresh Direct)

They do stock the Ocean Spray Grapefruit here in NJ too, but if I'm resorting to pre-packed juices, I like to pick those from the chilled section.

[ Edited by: Scaramouch 2014-12-08 11:02 ]

On 2014-12-05 11:56, mikehooker wrote:
I find that if I use half of whatever the recipe calls for I enjoy the drink a lot better. I'm not sure if that's a product of the bottled kind having a different flavor than fresh squeezed but if I use the full amount it's all I taste in the drink no matter how many ingredients are in it.

I might have to renege on this comment I made last month. I just found actual grapefruit at my local supermarket here in Austin and last night made a Mai Kai tribute rum barrel using fresh squeezed, the full amount called for. Wow, what a difference over that bottled shit. It's still very prominent, even though there's equal portions of lime, oj, passion fruit and two different rums, but not in a bad way. Although I like my rum barrels using pineapple instead of grapefruit, this is pretty delicious and spot on to what I remember from Mai Kai. Will have to revisit some other recipes that I've been neglecting or otherwise doctoring cuz I didn't want to bother with grapefruit. Hope the stores carry it a while longer.

On 2015-01-12 10:45, mikehooker wrote:

On 2014-12-05 11:56, mikehooker wrote:
I find that if I use half of whatever the recipe calls for I enjoy the drink a lot better. I'm not sure if that's a product of the bottled kind having a different flavor than fresh squeezed but if I use the full amount it's all I taste in the drink no matter how many ingredients are in it.

I might have to renege on this comment I made last month. I just found actual grapefruit at my local supermarket here in Austin and last night made a Mai Kai tribute rum barrel using fresh squeezed, the full amount called for. Wow, what a difference over that bottled shit. It's still very prominent, even though there's equal portions of lime, oj, passion fruit and two different rums, but not in a bad way. Although I like my rum barrels using pineapple instead of grapefruit, this is pretty delicious and spot on to what I remember from Mai Kai. Will have to revisit some other recipes that I've been neglecting or otherwise doctoring cuz I didn't want to bother with grapefruit. Hope the stores carry it a while longer.

Try a Navy Grog next. They are pretty GF heavy and should be fairly telling for you.

On 2015-01-12 12:20, Swanky wrote:

On 2015-01-12 10:45, mikehooker wrote:

On 2014-12-05 11:56, mikehooker wrote:
I find that if I use half of whatever the recipe calls for I enjoy the drink a lot better. I'm not sure if that's a product of the bottled kind having a different flavor than fresh squeezed but if I use the full amount it's all I taste in the drink no matter how many ingredients are in it.

I might have to renege on this comment I made last month. I just found actual grapefruit at my local supermarket here in Austin and last night made a Mai Kai tribute rum barrel using fresh squeezed, the full amount called for. Wow, what a difference over that bottled shit. It's still very prominent, even though there's equal portions of lime, oj, passion fruit and two different rums, but not in a bad way. Although I like my rum barrels using pineapple instead of grapefruit, this is pretty delicious and spot on to what I remember from Mai Kai. Will have to revisit some other recipes that I've been neglecting or otherwise doctoring cuz I didn't want to bother with grapefruit. Hope the stores carry it a while longer.

Try a Navy Grog next. They are pretty GF heavy and should be fairly telling for you.

We are getting fresh grapefruits here now in the local Food Coop. Organic. So you may try your "health food" grocery stores time to time as well in cold months.

BTW, this year I tried juicing and freezing the GF. It has worked well. One odd thing is that it took forever for it to freeze solid. In ice trays it took 24 hours or more where just water would have been frozen in maybe 5-6 hours. After they froze, I popped them out and put them in zip lock bags for long storage. Grab a few cubes at a time as needed now and the flavor is good.

Yep, Navy Grog is what I am slated to try next with the fresh grapefruit. I got the Bum's ice cone mold kit for Xmas and made my first NG a couple weeks ago and wasn't in love with it. I'd never had one anywhere else to compare so wasn't sure if it was the bottled grapefruit that made it not great or if it's just not my favorite drink. Hope it's the former. Will report back.

Made a Navy Grog last night with fresh squeezed white gf and it was exponentially better than the previous one with bottled 100% juice. The flavor did not dominate or bitter the drink. And the more I drank and as the ice cone gave some dilution, the more I really enjoyed it and got excited about playing around with different rums in the future like I do with Mai Tai's. I used the standard Don recipe with honey mix and soda water using Cruzan, V/X, and ED 12 as my white, dark and demerara.

Not to throw this topic way off course, but in reading the various threads about Navy Grogs on TC it seems most people prefer the TV version with allspice instead of honey, with no soda water and only two rums. Or some amalgamation of the two (just adding allspice to the DtB recipe?). Yet the reviews on Grogalizer all seem to be for the Don recipe and are overwhelmingly positive. So what makes the best Navy Grog?

Ok, that's a total derailment.

Fresh is always better than bottled!

But that doesn't mean that bottled is bad.

There are a few tricks you can use to get the best of both, and they work on almost all the citrus juices....

Buy quality bottled product. Read the ingredients, the labels says 100% juice but that doesn't always mean it is 100% of that particular juice. Some lesser brands add apple or grape to the mix to keep sweetness up and costs down.

Add some fresh juice to the bottled product. This helps in batching for parties (or just a Friday night) by getting the convenience of bottled but still getting some of the sparkle of fresh. The effort of juicing one grapefruit into a pitcher of bottled gives you the best balance of fresh and bottled.

And then specifically to the original question of Grapefruits...

White Grapefruit would have been the fruit most commonly available 'back in the day.' And what Don Beach would have been using while in the Caribbean doing his research.

Pink Grapefruit is close, and was becoming quite common when these drinks were being made, but you will need to adjust your recipes because they are now considerably sweeter than the typical white variety.

Ruby Red Grapefruit is very much sweeter than the white so you will have to adjust your recipe to accommodate. And this is going to be the easiest fruit/juice to find because it is the easiest to grow and most commercially stable of all the fruits in this family.

You can use any of the varieties for any of the drinks because it is all grapefruit juice BUT you have to do some experimenting first because the different varieties are differently sweet. For example, if you are using pink grapefruit juice in your Navy Grog you will need to use a bit less honey. You might also need to add a dash of bitters (grapefruit or others) to keep that slight citrus-bitter-edge.

The plus side to all of this..... you are going to have to make several more Navy Grog's so you can try some variations on juice with more or less sweets and more or less or different bitters.

On 2015-01-13 07:21, mikehooker wrote:
Made a Navy Grog last night with fresh squeezed white gf and it was exponentially better than the previous one with bottled 100% juice. The flavor did not dominate or bitter the drink. And the more I drank and as the ice cone gave some dilution, the more I really enjoyed it and got excited about playing around with different rums in the future like I do with Mai Tai's. I used the standard Don recipe with honey mix and soda water using Cruzan, V/X, and ED 12 as my white, dark and demerara.

Not to throw this topic way off course, but in reading the various threads about Navy Grogs on TC it seems most people prefer the TV version with allspice instead of honey, with no soda water and only two rums. Or some amalgamation of the two (just adding allspice to the DtB recipe?). Yet the reviews on Grogalizer all seem to be for the Don recipe and are overwhelmingly positive. So what makes the best Navy Grog?

Ok, that's a total derailment.

The navy grog I make is:
3/4 oz lime jucie
3/4 oz grapefruit juice
1 heavy handed dash grapefruit bitters, per the advice of this thread
1.5 oz 1:1 honey mix
1 oz white spanish-style rum (I know the standard is puerto rican rum or virgin islands rum, but there are so damn many brands of dry, light rums that get filtered after aging that I can't stand not to try them)
1 oz jamaican gold rum (or a similarly funky, pot-stilled rum)
1 oz demerara rum(I almost always use el dorado 8 year)
1/4 oz allspice dram(I make my own according to the recipe on seriouseats)

Shaken with ice for 10 seconds and strained into a glass with an ice cone in it.

I really like it, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm no sommelier and that I'm pretty easy to please.

On 2015-01-13 08:06, Chip and Andy wrote:

Buy quality bottled product. Read the ingredients, the labels says 100% juice but that doesn't always mean it is 100% of that particular juice. Some lesser brands add apple or grape to the mix to keep sweetness up and costs down.

C&A: Here's the label from the bottle I was using that I went ahead and tossed.

It's all grapefruit juice but something went wrong when it went to concentrate. It's just really really bitter and, frankly, tastes disgusting to me. This week I've made a Navy Grog and a Steve Crane Jet Pilot using fresh grapefruit and they were both so much more balanced and better tasting than my previous attempts with that bottled juice.

I found in the cold section of Trader Joe's a 100% Florida Grapefruit Juice that is pasteurized and not from concentrate with a very short shelf life. I shall continue the experiments to see how it compares to fresh squeezed.

Pat: Thanks for the recipe. For my next two Navy Grogs I think I'm going to try just adding 1/4 oz St Elizabeth to the Don recipe and then doing the TV recipe and then start exploring with different rums and variations from there. I see many Navy Grogs in my future.

On 2015-01-16 12:16, mikehooker wrote:
It's all grapefruit juice but something went wrong when it went to concentrate. It's just really really bitter and, frankly, tastes disgusting to me. This week I've made a Navy Grog and a Steve Crane Jet Pilot using fresh grapefruit and they were both so much more balanced and better tasting than my previous attempts with that bottled juice.

First all please read this post.

I follow the advice in that post & cut the central stem of the grapefruit out when squeezing at home - I cut the grapefruit in half & use an apple corer to cut the centre stem out.

This way you extract the juice from the flesh but avoid crushing the stem which releases bitterness. I don't think you want the oils from the grapefruit skin in your drink either so I squeeze fruit downwards in a large mexican elbow squeezer.

I've been meaning to share that grapefruit cutting revelation for a while! It's one of the best things I learnt (early on in my tiki experience), I think you can really tell the difference even if the central stem is left in when you squeeze.

I have a theory re commercial grapefruit juices:

I think they just squeeze the entire fruit (probably in a roller type press) which puts the bitterness from the central stem & oils from the skin into the juice.

The 'central stem' taste is much stronger in commercial grapefruit juice. I've probably tried commercial 3/4 grapefruit juices & found this off-putting flavour mikehooker describes.

Juice from the red grapefruit does have subtle differences to the white (it's slightly less grapefruity lingering taste) but it's way better substitute than any bottled grapefruit juice I have tried!

Fresh red grapefruit gets my vote :)

There are a couple of good posts around the series of tubes, but pretty much every juice that doesn't come directly from a grove is from concentrate, even those that say "fresh squeezed". I am lucky to have Harvey's Groves nearby that produces orange and grapefruit juice to die for. I don't even make grapefruit drinks when I can't get their juice.

If I could just get them to start growing limes!

On 2015-01-16 12:16, mikehooker wrote:

Pat: Thanks for the recipe. For my next two Navy Grogs I think I'm going to try just adding 1/4 oz St Elizabeth to the Don recipe and then doing the TV recipe and then start exploring with different rums and variations from there. I see many Navy Grogs in my future.

I also use that recipe (altho, i only use 1 oz of honey mix, and add a half oz or os of seltzer water; also, i tend to use 3 oz of just dark and/or demerara rums).

it combines the best of the TV and DtB versions; also, iirc this is pretty much the Yeoman's Grog recipe...

I braved the bus ride to the trendy hipster grocery store nearest me the other day and managed to find some fresh white grapefruits. Now however, I'm faced with a new dilemma, for there were not one, but two varieties of white fleshed grapefruits: the Oro Blanco and the cocktail grapefruit. The oro blanco is the bigger of the 2, with paler flesh, while the cocktail is about the size of an orange with darker flesh. Tasted by themselves, I'd say the oro blanco is a little bit "brighter" in aroma and flavor, but I suppose the real question is which variety, if either, was Don using for his drinks?

The larger Oro Blanco is a recent variation of a grapefruit, bred to be a bit sweeter and seedless.

It will make an excellent drink, but of your two choices the smaller fruit is probably closer to what Donn was using while travelling the Caribbean and inventing his Rhum Rhapsodies.

On 2015-02-02 08:50, Chip and Andy wrote:
The larger Oro Blanco is a recent variation of a grapefruit, bred to be a bit sweeter and seedless.

It will make an excellent drink, but of your two choices the smaller fruit is probably closer to what Donn was using while travelling the Caribbean and inventing his Rhum Rhapsodies.

Gotcha. Thanks!

Interestingly after some quick googling (not very hard, just Wikipedia) neither is likely to be authentic:

Mandelo aka Cocktail Grapefruit cultivated 1966 onwards.

Oro Blanco aka White Grapefruit cultivated 1958 onwards.

That's not intended to be disheartening, the way modern fruit cultivation is, I'm pretty sure all fruits have been subtly 'improved' or changed over the years.

I've never seen that smaller Mandelo/cocktail grapefruit before - I've had pomelo before (a sweeter large grapefruit type citrus), I haven't used it in cocktails.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts :)

On 2015-02-02 12:27, AdOrAdam wrote:
Interestingly after some quick googling (not very hard, just Wikipedia) neither is likely to be authentic:

Mandelo aka Cocktail Grapefruit cultivated 1966 onwards.

Oro Blanco aka White Grapefruit cultivated 1958 onwards.

That's not intended to be disheartening, the way modern fruit cultivation is, I'm pretty sure all fruits have been subtly 'improved' or changed over the years.

I've never seen that smaller Mandelo/cocktail grapefruit before - I've had pomelo before (a sweeter large grapefruit type citrus), I haven't used it in cocktails.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts :)

After tasting 2 grogs side by side I actually found myself preferring the one made with the oro blanco. It also bears mentioning that before I did the side by side test I dropped the honey mix to 1 oz as opposed to the 1.5 oz I was using originally. I'd intended the 1.5 oz of 1:1 mix to be analagous to the .75 oz of straight up honey called for originally, and while that recipe worked with the less palatable concentrated grapefruit juice, I found that using a full jigger of mix with fresh juice yielded a drink that was a little bit too sweet and sort of "flat" tasting.

On 2015-02-02 17:23, PalmtreePat wrote:

After tasting 2 grogs side by side I actually found myself preferring the one made with the oro blanco.

Oh well, Id still like to try it! The Oro Blanco grapefruit is what I use :)

Palmtree, if you're in the LA area skip the trendy organic stores and head for your local farmers market. I go to several in north Orange County and for the last few weeks have had my choice of delectable white grapefruits - seemingly all of the Oro Blanco variety. I'll have to try that recipe you posted above, once I get around to making my own allspice dram...