Toronja sour

Toronja Sour

My quest for a perfect grapefruit juice-based drink continues!  This time it is in the form of what I have dubbed the Toronja sour (toronja is Spanish for grapefruit).  This drink combines bourbon, white grapefruit juice, ginger syrup and some grapefruit bitters.

First, let’s talk about the ginger syrup.  Making your own homemade syrups for mixing drinks is an incredibly simple (and cheap!) way to introduce different flavors and sweeten your drinks more easily than trying to dissolve regular granulated sugar in cold liquid.

To make this syrup, start with equal parts sugar and water.  I made a 2 cup batch: 2 cups each of organic sugar and filtered water (the quality of your water is important here as is the quality of your sugar, but in a pinch just use what you’ve got — anything you make homemade will make your syrups infinitely better than using store-bought stuff most likely containing corn syrup).  Bring the sugar and water to a boil to dissolve everything, then add a couple large stalks of ginger, which you’ve peeled and sliced roughly.

Peeling the ginger

When you’ve added the ginger to the syrup, reduce the heat to let it simmer for a while.  I

All sliced up

let mine go probably for a good 20 minutes or so, tasting it along the way.  Once you taste it and the syrup has a nice level of ginger spiciness to it, take it off the heat.  You can either strain it into the bottle of your choice or opt to leave the ginger pieces in.  You may wish to add a bit of high-proof spirit as a preservative, depending on how long you plan on keeping it around.  Anywhere between 1 to 2 oz of vodka or white rum (J. Wray and Nephew Overproof rum is a great choice here) will do, and will extend the shelf life of your syrup.

This method for creating syrups can be extended to contain any other flavoring agents:

herbs, spices, fruit peel, vegetables, etc.  Try also experimenting with different kinds of sugar: demerara sugar, brown sugar, organic, muscovado…

So now that you have the syrup, here’s the recipe for the drink!

Toronja Sour

• 1½ oz bourbon (Evan Williams bourbon is an awesome value, and great for mixing or sipping straight)
• 1 oz fresh-squeezed white grapefruit juice
• ¾ oz ginger syrup
• 2 dashes Fee’s Grapefruit bitters
• Twist of grapefruitShake and strain the liquid ingredients into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with the grapefruit twist.

I really think the bourbon and grapefruit make a good combination here.  The bitters go a long way as well to bring out the flavor of the juice, and add a wonderful overall complexity to the drink.  The ginger syrup here provides a good bit of sweet and spicy backbone, but the ginger flavor itself isn’t in the forefront.  Another option here might be a tangier syrup, like one made from cranberries or with some lemon peel.  A cinnamon syrup would even approach something like “Don’s mix”, but that would be a little out of place with the use of bourbon instead of rum.  Still, I’d be interested to try it!

Cheers and enjoy!