Recipe

• 2oz silver tequila (I used Tequila El Rey)
• .5oz homemade grenadine (using a quality one here is KEY, see my note above. Mine is sweeter than a general 1:1 sugar syrup, so adjust according to taste)
• .75oz fresh lime juice
• Hibiscus Sugar (from Savortree) & Pink Salt mix

Rim your glass with some of the sugar&salt mixture (using juice from some of the used lime to help it stick). Shake all other ingredients with ice, and strain into your glass.

About

Happy Valentine’s day! How bout a pretty red cocktail? It’s hard to go wrong with a simple “sour” template for a cocktail. Nothing mind-blowing or complex, just plain simple and tasty. The “sour” is one of the oldest styles of cocktails, composed of a base spirit paired with a sweet and sour component. It’s an error-proof formula that works well with all types of spirits, as demonstrated by the popularity of many “sour” style cocktails including the Gimlet (gin sour), Margarita (tequila sour), Daiquiri (rum sour), Whiskey Sour, Pisco Sour, etc. It’s a go-to template if you’re ever strapped for ingredients or ideas, and a perfect base recipe to innovate on top of.

In several regions of Mexico, pomegranates and tequila have a tradition of being paired to make a liqueur/punch that is sometimes even aged (known as ponche de grenada), so I drew my inspiration from that combo as the basis for my sour. PS, If you’ve never had homemade or artisan grenadine (pomegranate syrup), please go read Homemade Grenadine…there will be absolutely no going back to the neon red stuff (which tastes absolutely NOTHING like pomegranates and IMHO really should NEVER be used in any craft cocktail).