Sea Breeze

The sweetened cocktail, which is what the drink was built on. Pure unsweetened cranberry is punishing at 90 ml. If that is all you have, use 60 ml of it, add 15 ml of simple syrup and make up the length with a splash of soda water.

Pink is sweeter and rounder and makes a friendlier drink. White is sharper and keeps the tartness the recipe is after. What matters more is freshness. Bottled grapefruit loses its bite within a day of opening and turns faintly bitter in a way fresh juice never does.

Fill the glass with ice, pour the vodka and grapefruit first, then take the cranberry slowly down the inside of the glass. Sweetened cranberry carries more sugar and sinks, leaving a red base under a pale pink top. It holds for about a minute before the first stir.

Yes, and it barely changes. Cranberry, grapefruit and soda water over a full glass of ice with a lime wedge covers the same ground. If you want the alcohol but not the vodka, gin puts juniper against the grapefruit and moves the drink toward a Salty Dog.

A classic Sea Breeze calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Vodka, 90 ml (3 oz) Cranberry juice, 30 ml (1 oz) Grapefruit juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Sea Breeze is roughly 11% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it a relatively light, sessionable drink — similar in strength to a beer.

A Sea Breeze is stirred, not shaken. It contains no citrus juice, so stirring keeps it crystal clear and silky instead of cloudy and aerated.