Forget the cranberry “juice” found in plastic jugs in the supermarket. Next time you want to add tart, rich cranberry flavor to cocktails, think fresh, small batch and organic.
Starvation Alley Farms, located on Washington state’s Long Beach Peninsula, is the state’s only certified organic cranberry farm. They grow cranberries on their 10-acre farm, which they sell fresh, and produce a 100 percent unsweetened cranberry juice that craft cocktail enthusiasts and professionals love.
“It’s unlike anything that is really on the market,” says Jessika Tantisook, Farm Keeper at Starvation Ally. “People love it because it’s pure, local and organic. And since it’s unpasteurized, it has that bright fruit flavor.” Tantisok says she likes to simply drink it plain, mixed with soda water, with about one half of an ounce of juice with up to eight ounces of water—still or sparkling—to start, and adjust the ratio from there. She says she also adds it to smoothies, or just sips it on its own as a nutritional supplement (cranberry juice is high in vitamin C, and disease-fighting antioxidants). For cocktails, she recommends pairing it in a tequila-based cocktail, or simple mixing it with a light lager for a “cran-shandy.”
You can find Starvation Alley products at farmers markets in Seattle and Portland, in gourmet grocers like Seattle’s Marx Foods, and in restaurants and craft cocktail bars from across the Northwest.
One such restaurant is Pelicano in Ilwaco, Wash. Owner and Chef Jeff McMahon knows the folks at Starvation Alley Farms, and loves using their juice in specialty cocktails. “We feature different specialty cocktails every month, and about every third month, one of them includes their cranberry juice,” McMahon says. “It’s unlike any juice I’ve ever had. Even just a little bit in a cocktail really makes the flavors pop.” In addition to specialty cocktails, Pelicano regularly features a version of the tequila sunrise with a float of cranberry juice on top instead of grenadine. “There aren’t really a lot of farms around us,” says McMahon, “so they’re not just the first organic cranberry farm in Washington to us—they’re also local.”
Escarlata, courtesy of Jeff McMahon
2 ounces tequila blanco
1 ½ ounces grapefruit simple syrup*
1 ½ ounces Starvation Alley cranberry juice
½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until chilled, and strain into an ice-filled low ball glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.
*To make the grapefruit simple syrup, combine the juice and zest of one grapefruit and ¼ – ½ cup sugar, or as needed, in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, cool and strain.
