Skip to content

Free shipping in the contiguous US

The Dry Pour August 11, 2026

Home / Learn / Recipes & Mocktails / From Scratch / Real Grenadine

Real Grenadine

Pomegranate and sugar, gently reduced — nothing like the bright red syrup that gave it a bad name.

beClink Editorial · August 11, 2026

Homemade grenadine in a swing-top bottle on a grey cloth, with a whole pomegranate and cut wedges showing the seeds.

Time

15 min

Serves

16

Glass

Bottle or jar

Garnish

None

Grenadine has a worse reputation than it deserves, and the reason is that most people have only met the neon version — corn syrup, red dye and an idea of cherry. The real thing is pomegranate — tart, deep, and colored by fruit rather than by dye. It takes fifteen minutes, it changes what a Shirley Temple is, and once you have made it the difference is not subtle.

Ingredients

  • 250 mlPomegranate juice, unsweetened
  • 250 gWhite sugar
  • 1 tspFresh lemon juice
  • 1 tspOrange flower water (optional)

Method

  1. Put the pomegranate juice and sugar in a pan over a low heat.
  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Keep it below a simmer — pomegranate turns dull and jammy if you boil it, and the fresh tartness is the whole point.
  3. Once clear, take it off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
  4. Add the orange flower water if you are using it. A teaspoon is plenty; it is the note that makes bought grenadine taste like a bar rather than a kitchen.
  5. Cool completely and bottle. Refrigerate.

Make it yours

Reduce the juice first

Simmer the juice alone to two-thirds before adding sugar. Darker, more concentrated, and worth the extra ten minutes.

Add molasses

A teaspoon. Takes it toward the older style, which used pomegranate molasses rather than juice.

A strip of orange peel

In as it cools, out before bottling. Gives the citrus lift that the orange flower water does differently.

A clove or two

Steeped as it cools. Very good in anything served warm or at Christmas.

A Shirley Temple

15ml in the bottom of a tall glass of ice, topped with ginger ale, a squeeze of lemon and a cherry.

With sparkling

A spoonful under non-alcoholic sparkling wine. The color alone does most of the work.

Over soda and lime

The simplest use and the one that shows what you have made. No other flavor to hide behind.

How to serve & pair

Not a drink on its own — it is too intense — but it makes several. Keep it in a small bottle, use it in spoonfuls rather than measures, and expect it to look richer and less even than the bottled kind.

Common questions

Does grenadine contain alcohol?

Properly made grenadine is pomegranate juice and sugar, with none at all. Some 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.

Why is mine not bright red?

Because the neon version is dye. Real grenadine takes its color from the juice, so it lands somewhere in the red to deep ruby range depending on the pomegranate — richer and less uniform than the bottled kind, and it will look darker in the bottle than it does in a glass with ice and light behind it.

How long does it keep?

About a month refrigerated in a clean sealed bottle. The sugar does the preserving, so a version reduced further will keep longer. If it ferments it will fizz faintly when you open it — start again at that point.

Is orange flower water necessary?

No, and plenty of good grenadine has never seen any. But it is the note most people are unknowingly expecting, because the classic bar version carries it — add a teaspoon and the syrup tastes more like the thing you had in mind.

BeaThinking of making a Real Grenadine and not sure where to start? Ask us.Ask us →

More From Scratch

See all →

Pour it, don’t just read it.

Every bottle in this recipe is on the shelf.

Shop the Catalog →

— The Dry Pour —

Best sellers

See all best sellers