Splash of Grenadine

He made waves with the introduction of his Jack Rudy Small Batch Tonic, and now barkeep extraordinaire Brooks Reitz has a new product coming to market: Jack Rudy Small Batch Grenadine.

“What we’ve made is a lively, fresh, complex grenadine that is quite close to the ones our great-grandparents might have had,” says Reitz. The entrepreneur got the idea to expand his Jack Rudy brand with grenadine upon realizing that the only current product on the market was Rose’s. “It’s really almost a bottle of cancer—high fructose, sodium glutamate, and red dye. I wouldn’t want to put it in my body,” he says. So Reitz, ever the cocktail historian, set off on a quest to find a better, retro option. “Grenadine is actually a very old bar staple and was traditionally made with real pomegranate juice,” he says. But where to find a pomegranate farmer?

After a frustrating search, he had a breakthrough. “I found a small family farm in Madera, California, that grows and presses pomegranates whole and sells the juice to candle makers and perfumeries,” he says. The farm didn’t have much experience with food, but after a year of conversations and carefully working over his recipe (sweetened with real cane sugar and orange flower water), a product was born. And now you can have some yourself. A two-pack of the 17 ounce bottles sells for $32 (without shipping) at jackrudycocktailco.com. And to meet the man behind the bottle, visit The Ordinary, where general manager Reitz comes up with creative cocktails, such as his Jacques Roses featuring Flor de Cana four-year rum, Applejack, lime, and of course Jack Rudy Grenadine.

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