I love all things pink and I also love gin. Imagine my delight when I found pink gin on a Gin & Tonic menu on an airplane coming home from Iceland. As I enjoyed a cocktail somewhere over the North Atlantic, I thought about how I needed to add some pink gin to our liquor cabinet at home. Fast forward a year or so later when Ed is in the UK for work and I ask him to be on the lookout for pink gin in the duty-free shops at Heathrow. I was delighted again when Ed brought home not one, but two pink gins from Chase Distillery in the UK.
One has flavors of rhubarb and bramley apple (a sour apple) and turns out to be a light brown in color – in keeping with the apple flavoring (the bottle itself was pink). The other was flavored with grapefruit and pomelo (a large citrus fruit that tastes similar to a grapefruit) and pale pink in color. It’s the latter that inspired this cocktail. This is the time of year when citrus shines in the United States as we’re getting fresh produce from the warmest parts of our country. So a grapefruit-based cocktail made sense.
It was almost two years ago that I had my first French 75 and I’ve enjoyed a few of them since then. The French 75 dates back to WWI and is made with gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and sparkling wine. I swapped the lemon for a pink grapefruit (in French it’s ‘pamplemousse’) in both the gin and the juice for this modern adaptation. And, I used a rosé sparkling wine to add some more pink.
The grapefruit paired well with both the gin and the sparkling wine. The result was a lovely cocktail – a nice ‘twist’ on an old classic. If you don’t have pink gin, no worries. Any traditional London Dry gin (such as Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire) will do. Stay away from gins that are too botanical focused such as Hendrick’s.
Gluten-Free/Wheat-Free Note: Chase gins are made gluten-free/wheat-free so perfect for someone sensitive to gluten. Both pair well with good quality tonic waters for a traditional Gin & Tonic.
| Pamplemousse 75 | Print |
- 1-1/2 ounces dry gin (preferably flavored with grapefruit)
- 1 ounce freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
- ½ ounce simple syrup (see Notes)
- Sparkling wine
- Garnish: grapefruit peel
- In a shaker filled with ice, add gin, grapefruit juice and simple syrup. Shake.
- Strain into a champagne flute so it’s about halfway filled (see Notes).
- Top with sparkling wine.
- Garnish with a strip of grapefruit peel.
SIMPLE SYRUP
1 cup (8 ounces) water
1 cup granulated sugar
Bring the water to a simmer in a saucepan set over medium-high heat. Add the sugar and stir until it completely dissolves. Remove the pan from the heat. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Pour the syrup into a clean 1-pint bottle, cap it and refrigerate it until needed. Makes 1½ cups and keeps two months or longer in the refrigerator.
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