Country Living Cooped Up Cocktails: Grapefruit Tequila Sour
You can find me back up on Country Living Magazine’s Instagram Live, this friday, April 10th, at 5 pm ET! This week, I’ll be whipping up fun Grapefruit Tequila Sour (also doing a mocktail version!!), and if the weather holds, I’ll be giving a tour of The Chicken Bar. But fair warning…it’s been raining all week and it maybe pretty snotty out still. NEVERTHELESS, WE SHALL PERSIST!!!
I wanted to make sure everyone had a place to find the recipe and a full explanation of ingredients so that hopefully, you can come prepared and make drinks along with me!
We’ll start with the boozy version…here’s what you’ll need to bring with you:
We’re all kind of up a creek as far as getting supplies right now, so I’m going to give you a little run down of what to do if you don’t have access to some of these ingredients.
Tequila: I’m using Casa Mexico Silver, because its my new favorite and the bright, green bite of the Silver is sooooo good with the grapefruit juice—but use whatever type of tequila you have on hand.
Don’t have tequila? Try gin, whiskey/bourbon, or rum. Whatever you’ve got! (Or try the mocktail recipe below!)
Don’t have fresh grapefruit or lime?
Any sort of sour citrus will do. In a pinch, use bottled juice. Orange juice will make for a much sweeter drink, but hey! It works, too.
No orange liqueur?
Any sort of sweet fruity liqueur will do. If need be, skip it all together and double your simple syrup quantity.
Which brings us to your simple syrup. If you’ve got a copy of my book, you can see I’m rather a fan of making my own simple syrups at home, but for simplicity sake, I’m going to recommend using store-bought for this. I’m using Rose Syrup from the Royal Rose Syrups because I happen to have a lot of it on hand and I love their line of beautiful, organic products. Seriously—go take a look—the flavors are amazing.
But use whatever syrup you might have on hand! If you don’t just happen to have simple syrups laying around your house, you can use light agave syrup, or even maple syrup, or make a quick honey syrup by dissolving honey into hot water at a 1:1 ratio (so if you only want to make enough for two rounds of this drink, dissolve about an ounce of honey in an ounce of hot water) and let cool before using.
To make a basic simple syrup with granulated sugar, bring 1 cup sugar just barely to a boil in 1 cup water until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and cool. Store up to 2 weeks in the fridge.
LET’S TALK EGGS. Egg white is a totally optional add to this drink. It’s great without it. But YOU KNOW I LOVE ME SOME EGG WHITE COCKTAILS. I highly recommend it. As always, use raw eggs with extreme caution; pasteurized egg whites are an option that takes a little bit more of the risk out.
Aquafaba is also a great replacement for egg whites. This is literally the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans. I tend to use 1/2 ounce of aquafaba to replace a single medium egg white.
To build your Grapefruit Tequila Sour:
Add your tequila, your liqueur, your citrus juices, your syrup, and if you are doing them, egg whites or aquafaba to a shaker. Shake vigorously until foamed, open shaker, pop in some ice cubes, and then shake just until chilled. Strain liquid from shaker into your glass. Garnish if you feel like it.
NOW—for a mocktail option, here’s what you’ll need:
Again, use whatever syrup, citrus, and sparkling water flavor you’ve got on hand.
To Build Your Grapefruit Fizz Mocktail:
Add citrus juice, syrup, and if you’re doing it, aquafaba to a cocktail shaker and shake until foamed. Add ice and shake briefly until chilled. Strain liquids and foam into your cocktail glass, then top with sparkling water. Garnish if you feel like it.
If you can, join me LIVE at 5pm ET on Country Living Magazine’s Instagram, bring your ingredients, and we’ll build these drinks together! Cheers!