Grenadine is the bottle from your parents' liquor cabinet — the nuclear-red stuff that turned a glass of 7-Up into a Shirley Temple. Here's the secret nobody tells you: grenadine was never supposed to taste like cherry, and it was never supposed to be that color. It's pomegranate. BG Reynolds Lush Grenadine is real pomegranate and cane sugar with a little hibiscus for depth — tart, balanced, and not remotely fluorescent, because there's no dye or fake flavor in it.

That tartness is the whole point: it keeps sweet drinks from going flabby. Sink half an ounce in the bottom of a Hurricane for that sunrise fade, or reach for it in a Zombie, a Port Light, or an El Diablo. It'll make an honest Tequila Sunrise and — full circle — a Shirley Temple worth handing a kid. Once you've had grenadine that tastes like fruit, the red stuff is hard to go back to.

Once opened, refrigerate and use within 90 days — unopened, it keeps for two years from the date of manufacture.