Winter citrus is one of my favorite ingredients to experiment this time of year, both in my food recipes, and my cocktail recipes! With only 3 ingredients, this Empress Grapefruit Fizz cocktail is anything but ordinary, and is full of wonderful midwinter flavor. The all-natural indigo hue of the Empress 1908 Gin enhances the gorgeous pinks from the grapefruit juice to create a drink that’s both beautiful, and delicious!
What makes Empress 1908 Gin so special?
Empress 1908 Gin is a hand-crafted spirit from Victoria Distillers in British Columbia, Canada. It’s micro-distilled in small batch copper pot stills using eight botanicals: juniper, rose, coriander seed, grapefruit peel, ginger root, cinnamon bark, butterfly pea blossoms and the Fairmont Empress Blend Tea. The gin gets its gorgeous color naturally from butterfly pea flowers. It’s a very complex gin, that lends itself well to floral and fruity cocktails. It’s perfect with citrus!
Butterfly pea flowers are naturally pH sensitive which makes working with Empress super fun: any acidic additions, such as lemon, shifts the indigo color to magenta or pink. Basic ingredients, such as tonic water, give it the most gorgeous lagoon blue. Honestly, it makes bartending like a delicious science experiment. In this recipe, the grapefruit juice causes the color to shift from indigo to pink.
How to make this cocktail
Making this grapefruit cocktail couldn’t be more simple, and doesn’t require any special equipment or prep. Start by squeezing the fresh grapefruit juice. Shake the grapefruit juice and gin in a shaker with ice, and strain into a balloon glass. Top with ginger beer, and garnish with a grapefruit slice. Simple!
This recipe makes one Empress Grapefruit Fizz cocktail, but can easily be scaled up to make more. Due to its simplicity, this is a fabulous option for a batched cocktail.
Looking for more cocktail recipes?
Why not check out…
Empress Peach Pie Frozen Cocktail
I hope you enjoy the Empress Grapefruit Fizz! Be sure to tag me on instagram so I can see your creations, and leave me a comment below! Your feedback helps other home cooks and bakers who are giving this recipe a try, and I love hearing about what you made!
