Cranberry Juice
Cranberry juice is a tart, deeply coloured juice made from cranberries, usually lightly sweetened since the raw berry is extremely sour on its own. It adds both colour and a sharp fruitiness to a drink. It is a staple mixer in many vodka-based cocktails.
Common uses
- mixer in tall vodka cocktails
- adds colour and tartness to shaken drinks
Buying & storage
A few days: Good for a few days refrigerated, then noticeably duller. Worth planning a second drink around rather than throwing away.
Buying: unsweetened or lightly sweetened juice gives more control over a drink's overall sweetness
Storage: refrigerate after opening and use within a couple of weeks
In depth
Understanding cranberry juice
How it is made, where it comes from, what it pairs with, and how it behaves in an alcohol-free drink.
How it's made
Cranberries are far too sour and tannic to drink neat, so essentially all cranberry juice sold is sweetened and usually blended with other juices. The distinction that matters on the shelf is 'juice' versus 'juice drink': the latter can be mostly water and sugar, and it is the single most common reason an alcohol-free cranberry drink tastes like squash.
Origin
Commercial cranberry juice is a twentieth-century North American product; its cocktail career is largely a 1970s-onward phenomenon.
What it pairs with
Grapefruit, lime, orange and sparkling wine. Its tannin makes it one of the few juices that does not taste flabby on its own, which is why it works in dry drinks.
In alcohol-free drinks
- Supplies colour, tartness and tannin — that last one is unusual in a juice and genuinely useful without alcohol
- Carries the Virgin Sea Breeze and the alcohol-free Cosmopolitan, both of which need it unsweetened or corrected with lime
Before it goes
Use up cranberry juice
Ranked by how much of it each drink uses and how little else it needs — the ones at the top will not send you back to the shop.
- Virgin Sea Breeze
Uses 120ml. Also needs pink grapefruit juice.
- Sea Breeze
Uses 90ml. Also needs vodka, grapefruit juice.
- Sparkling Cranberry Mocktail
Uses 90ml. Also needs fresh lime juice, soda water.
- Alcohol-Free Cosmopolitan
Uses 60ml. Also needs fresh lime juice, fresh orange juice, orange peel, for the twist.
Recipes
Cocktails containing this ingredient
Sparkling Cranberry Mocktail
Tart cranberry juice lengthened with soda and lime — a bright, festive-looking three-ingredient mocktail.
Stand-in
Where cranberry juice is a recommended substitute
Recipes that name it as a swap for something else, with what it replaces.
- Alcohol-Free Mulled Winein place of red grape juice (100%, unsweetened)
Swap it
Possible substitutions
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