Firefly!
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but finally getting around to making the homemade grenadine mentioned at Tea Leaves jogged my memory and reminded me to mention it.
There’s a bar near my house called Kelly’s that we go to sometimes, especially after work. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall place that happens to have surprisingly good food and cocktails. Notably, they actually know how to mix real cocktails instead of just looking at you dumbfounded if you order anything more complicated than a rum and coke. For example, they’re about the only place I’ve found in town that can make a decent Sidecar.
During one post-work happy hour, they had little drink cards at the tables from LUPEC, ’Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails’. Laura ordered a Firefly from it, loved it, and I’ve been pressed into service making them ever since.
It’s a simple drink, but quite tasty:
- 1 1/2 oz vodka
- 2 oz grapefruit juice
- 1 tsp of grenadine
Shake it up with ice, and strain into a rocks glass with crushed ice.
I tend to make them as spritzers, topped with some club soda.
They’re good with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and the Stirrings pomegranate grenadine, but absolutely great with homemade grenadine.
For the grenadine, I basically followed Pete’s recipe, but cooked it to 225 degrees instead of 230 so it wasn’t quite as sweet.
Mmm.