Cranberry cocktail for cocktails?

July 6, 2020 9:54 PM

When a cocktail recipe calls for cranberry juice do they really mean super tart actual cranberry juice or do them mean Ocean Spray style cranberry cocktail?
posted by Cosine to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

The cocktail. True unsweetened cranberry juice is great but that's not how it is used.
posted by wnissen at 9:59 PM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Almost always the diluted/sweetened cocktail stuff. Only context I've seen the super tart actual juice being used was a very hipstery garden party thing with homemade shrubs and herbal infused booze served in mason jars. The cranberry drink my friend-of-friend made for me, who was acting bartender, was this potent as hell bourbon cranberry thing served around a huge cube of ice; it punched me in the face.
posted by Mizu at 10:16 PM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

100%cranberry juice is one of the few things that is easier to drink *after* you add vodka.

If you want to use the 100% juice in a recipe you likely want to add some simple syrup too. (I have no idea how much, but I guess this way the sweetness is tuneable).
posted by nat at 1:43 AM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

Nthing "the cocktail".

You have my word as a member of a family who's part of the Ocean Spray cranberry grower's collective.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 AM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

....Actually, I had a thought. Because Ocean Spray DOES make a product it calls "100% juice", but in their case it is cranberry juice that uses grape juice as a sweetener. It's all juice, it's just not all CRANBERRY juice. In that case, you can use THAT "100% juice". But I have a feeling what you're talking about is just 100% cranberry juice that is unsweetened - that is NOT what people mean by cranberry juice for cocktails.

Fun fact - the only reason that they call it "cranberry juice cocktail" is it's an FDA mandated thing; there is just too much sweetener in the "cranberry juice cocktail" for them to legally call it "juice" according to FDA standards. They need it, because - as you state - the straight juice is super-tart. If you look at the juice blends (cran-apple, cran-grape, cran-cherry, etc.) they all are called "juice" - it's because the other fruit juice is sweet itself and that cuts back on how much sweetener they need to add to offset the cranberry. Or if you look at that "100% juice", it's cranberry cut with grape. (You'll note that the name is "100% juice, cranberry" instead of "100% cranberry juice"; that's an important distinction).

Long story short - what cocktail recipes mean is cranberry juice that has been sweetened with SOMETHING. Otherwise it'd be way too tart.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:54 AM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

Jim Meehan's Cosmopolitan recipe is:

2 oz. Absolut Citron
0.75 oz. Cointreau
0.75 oz. lime juice
0.5 oz. cranberry juice (unsweetened)
0.25 oz. simple syrup
Garnish: 1 orange twist

The classic Cosmopolitan, according to Meehan, was created by Toby Cecchini in 1988, and made with equal parts Cointreau, lime, and cranberry juice (cocktail), without the syrup, and with a lemon twist instead of the orange. Meehan notes, "Fresh cranberry juice is far too tart to pour unsweetened, which is why I've added the simple syrup."

My suspicion is that the pure cranberry juice reads fancier or something, but I have subbed 0.75 oz of cranberry cocktail in for the juice/syrup combo and the drink comes out just fine.
posted by papayaninja at 5:53 AM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

I think you can assume it's calling for 'cranberry juice cocktail' unless you can work out from context that they might mean pure cranberry juice. I doubt any cocktail with pure cranberry juice would use more than 1/2 ounce, and it would need sweetener to balance the tartness (like Jim Meehan's Cosmopolitan spec above). I imagine that anyone writing their recipe with pure cranberry juice would note "unsweetened" in the recipe.
posted by Quiscale at 6:56 AM on July 7, 2020

The excellent book Cocktail Codex from Death & Co. has this to say about cranberry juice in Cosmopolitans:

Where this drink can and often does go wrong is in using cranberry cocktail and too much of it. This makes the whole thing a sweet mess, which may be tasty for people unaccustomed to strong spirits, but it robs the cocktail of complexity, sophistication, and balance. Though cranberry cocktail is the ingredient originally called for in Cosmopolitans [emphasis mine], we encourage you to try a version made with pure, unsweetened cranberry juice. Admittedly, it is very tannic and behaves quite differently in cocktails, so for our version, we balance the cranberry juice with an equal amount of simple syrup, and then increase the vodka to help it punch through the tart sweetness.

tl;dr: cranberry juice cocktail is the more usual/traditional juice in cocktails, but when you use it it's harder to control the sweetness of the drink, so some bartenders prefer to use unsweetened straight juice and then sweeten the drink accordingly. If it's not specified, assume cocktail.
posted by mskyle at 7:24 AM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]