Botanical: Grapefruit

The Grapefruit is thought to be a hybrid result of breeding a pomelo and sweet orange together. Romantically, the fruit was referred to as the “Forbidden Fruit.” You can normally tell how sweet a grapefruit is by how red the flesh is; the redder, the sweeter. And the name “grape” in grapefruit is said to refer to the clusters which grow on the trees. They’re “grape-like.”If you haven’t had a grapefruit, the flavor is quite distinctive among citrus fruits. It contains Grapefruit Mercaptan which is a sulfur containing terpene responsible for the aroma that is grapefruit. It’s also delicious broiled with a spoonful of brown sugar on top.In gins, grapefruit’s distinctive flavor after distillation is one of the reasons its rarely used as anything less than a signature botanical. Unlike lemon or bitter orange, grapefruit has a distinctive “grapefruit-like” aroma which tends to be loud.