The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks (64 page)

POMEGRANATE

Punica granatum

lythraceae (loosestrife family)

A
n 1867 medical journal entry on pomegranate explained that “the tincture, a liqueur glass morning and evening, infallibly expels the yellow tapeworm.” This was not the first report of the vermifugal powers of pomegranate: a Portuguese doctor had been making a tea of the bark for the same purpose since 1820 and calling it grenadine. Fortunately, by the second half of the nineteenth century, grenadine had come to refer to a sweet, ruby-colored fruit syrup used to flavor sodas and drinks, not a bark tea designed to kill intestinal worms.

A pomegranate tree is actually a large shrub of Asian and Middle Eastern origin. It still grows wild there today, but now it is cultivated throughout Europe, the Americas, and in tropical areas around the world. Although the tree has ancient origins and was extensively grown by Egyptians, there are just two species. The plants were once classified in a taxonomic family by themselves, until new molecular research uncovered their close genetic relationship to purple loosestrife, crepe myrtle, cuphea, and other seemingly dissimilar plants. (Crumpled flower petals are their most obvious shared anatomical feature.)

Pomegranate trees are now grown primarily in the Middle East, India, and China, although they are a specialty crop in the Mediterranean, and in Mexico and California. The fruit earned its species name
granatum
from the Latin word for “seeded,” and its fruit does, in fact, contain a few hundred seeds surrounded by bright red pulp. The syrup made from it, grenadine, derives from the early French word for pomegranate,
grenade.
The hand-thrown projectile of the same name was invented in the sixteenth century and was named after the fruit, perhaps because they were each the same size and filled with explosive materials of a very different kind.

Grenadine syrup was popular in French cafes as a sweetener for water in the 1880s, and shortly thereafter it began turning up in American soda fountains and cocktail bars. In 1910, the St. Regis hotel in New York served a cocktail called the Polly made of gin, grenadine, lemon juice, and soda. In 1913, the
New York Times
sent a skeptical male reporter to a bar designed just for women called Café des Beaux Arts on Sixth Avenue at Fortieth Street. Among the many marvels he discovered in this feminine establishment were brightly colored cocktails, including the frothy pink Beaux Arts Fizz, made with gin, orgeat (sweet almond) syrup, grenadine, and lemon juice.

Grenadine's run as a pure pomegranate syrup was surprisingly short. Artificial versions appeared in the early twentieth century, and by 1918 manufacturers were challenging new labeling laws,
trying to pass off any sort of red syrup as grenadine. As one reporter described the situation, “The syrup and the fruit from which it took its name were total strangers.” Although the artificial form eventually won out, grenadine stayed behind the bar, becoming an essential ingredient in hundreds of cocktails, including the Jack Rose and the tiki classic, Tequila Sunrise.

Thanks to a renewed interest in authentic ingredients, grenadine made with actual pomegranates can now be found on the shelves of better liquor stores and specialty food shops, as can pomegranate liqueurs and infused vodkas. But there is no substitute for homemade grenadine made from fresh-squeezed pomegranates. Even replacing the fresh juice with bottled compromises the flavor. When the fruit is in season, it is well worth spending an hour or so in the kitchen making up a batch for the freezer.

Berries tend to be low-maintenance, requiring only a trellis, once-a-year pruning, and occasional fertilizer. Most berries are planted in bare-root form (you buy a clump of live roots attached to a cane, not a growing plant) in winter or early spring.

Do check with local experts to find the varieties that grow best in your climate, and ask if you need a nearby pollinizer. Get pruning advice specific to the variety you've chosen: some raspberries, for instance, bear fruit twice a year and only on two year-old canes, which means that you have to cut back the old canes after they've fruited, but let the younger canes grow unmolested for two years before they bear fruit.