Real grenadine, lemon and bubbles — a pudding-hour drink that takes about a minute to build.
beClink Editorial·April 10, 2026
Time
3 min
Serves
1
Base
Grenadine
Glass
Highball, over ice
Garnish
A berry and a lemon wheel
Grenadine has a reputation problem, mostly earned by the neon stuff. Made properly from pomegranate it is tart, deep and genuinely useful — and with lemon, berries and soda it turns into something you would happily serve after dinner. No shaking, no measuring beyond the first pour, and if you have made your own grenadine this is the drink that shows it off.
Drop the berries — strawberries or raspberries — into the glass and press them once with the back of a spoon. Once is enough — press harder and you get seeds and pith rather than juice.
Fill the glass to the top with ice.
Add the grenadine and the lemon juice, and stir to bring them together.
Top with sparkling water, poured down the side of the glass. Don't stir again — the pour has already done it, and stirring afterwards costs the bubbles.
Garnish with a berry or a lemon wheel.
Shop the Recipe
Everything you need to pour this
What we reached for, and what else works. Everything here is in stock — swap freely.
From your kitchen: fresh lemon juice, sparkling water, fresh berries, ice cubes.
In this glass
Mix & Match: any 2–5 items save 5% · 6–23 save 7% · 24+ save 10%, applied automatically in your cart. Free shipping in the contiguous US, no minimum.
Make it yours
It is fifteen minutes
Pomegranate juice and sugar, warmed until clear. Tarter and deeper than any bottle, and this is the drink where the difference shows most — the recipe is here, and it makes enough for a dozen of these.
Reduce it further
Simmer the juice to two-thirds before adding sugar, as in the grenadine recipe. More concentrated, so use 15ml rather than 20ml here.
Raspberry
Sharper than strawberry and it holds its shape in the glass rather than collapsing.
Blackberry
Deeper and less sweet. Good in autumn, and it turns the drink almost purple.
Frozen, straight from the bag
They double as ice and chill without watering it down. The easiest version of this drink.
Sparkling wine
Non-alcoholic sparkling instead of soda and it becomes a dessert kir, which is no bad thing.
Sparkling tea
Tannin instead of nothing. It gives the drink a finish that soda water cannot.
More lemon, first
Before you cut the grenadine. Most of what reads as too sweet here is not enough acid.
Two dashes of bitters
Aromatic or orange. It gives a sweet drink somewhere to end without taking any sweetness away.
Cut to 15ml
And lengthen with more soda. The color survives easily — grenadine has plenty to give.
How to serve & pair
Tall, over a full glass of ice, in something you can see through — this is a drink that earns half its keep on looks. It suits the end of a meal rather than the start of an evening, and it is the one on this page that children will ask for, which is worth knowing before you make one for yourself. If you have a bottle of your own grenadine in the fridge, this is where it goes.
Common questions
Does grenadine contain alcohol?
Not the one used here — it is a pomegranate syrup rather than a liqueur. A few commercial versions use a small amount as a preservative, so the label is worth a glance if that matters to you, but the ingredient itself has never been an alcoholic one.
Is homemade grenadine worth it for this?
In this drink more than most, because there are only three things in the glass and the grenadine is two of them. Homemade is pomegranate and sugar and nothing else, so it lands tarter and deeper, and it takes about fifteen minutes to make enough for a dozen of these.
Can I use frozen berries?
Yes, and they double as ice. Drop them in while still frozen and the drink stays cold without watering down as it goes. Press them once as they soften rather than at the start.
Why lemon rather than lime?
Lemon is rounder and lets the pomegranate lead. Lime is sharper and more assertive, so it competes with the grenadine rather than framing it — pleasant, but a different drink.
From Scratch
