Is it necessary to keep grenadine refrigerated? Best Response!

At first glance, it seems that grenadine must be refrigerated. This looks to be a silly question, given we only refrigerate goods that may spoil.

Because grenadine is made with a high proportion of sugar, and sugar is an excellent preservative, surely there’s no reason to keep it cold?

It’s not that straightforward, like with many things in life. Given its sugar content, there should be no reason to refrigerate grenadine, but facts don’t care (and it is what it is, as the good Lord said to the inquisitive zebraremind me to tell you the story someday).

Does Grenadine Need To Be Refrigerated?

Unopened grenadine bottles do not need to be refrigerated, but opened ones must. Place the bottle in a dry, cold location, such as a pantry or well-kept beverages cabinet. As a result, grenadine is often adequately shielded from the elements to last for more than a year. When grenadine is opened, however, oxidation may harm some of the constituents, stimulating the development of bacteria whose metabolic activity would ultimately degrade the drink.

Why Grenadine Syrup Might Be In Danger Of Going Bad

1. Grenadine is made from stuff that can go bad

Most grenadine is made from water infused with orange blossom, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, and sugarlots and lots of sugar. (By the way, I’m a purist; grenadine isn’t grenadine unless it contains pomegranate juice.)

The result is a highly sweet syrup that is also tangy, so its sweetness does not become nauseating, particularly when used in cocktails as intended.

Lemon, orange-flower, and pomegranate juices all contain organic chemicals that attract germs like a magnet because they provide a feast of ready food to organisms.

Sure, producers go to great lengths to sterilize all ingredients used in the production of grenadine by using high pressure to cook them at higher temperatures than ordinary boiling water.

However, problems arise when people open bottles of grenadine after the fact and bugs get into the liquid. Trouble also begins to brew when the seal on the top of a bottle of grenadine eventually deteriorates due to the bottle being stored for too long.

When this occurs, the sugar in grenadine fights a valiant rearguard war to delay the development of bacteria, but the small organisms finally adapt sufficiently to surpass the sugar’s defenses and ruin it (although more on this is discussed below).

2. Grenadine production outliers

We can make a spectrum out of grenadine. We begin with some completely gimmicky (and disgusting) sugar-and-chemically flavored concoctions.

Following that are solid grenadines prepared from lemon, flower infusions, and pomegranate juice, as previously stated.

Finally, there are expensive, high-end grenadines made from real fruit. You should be able to forecast that each of these bands is at a distinct level of danger of failing.

Chemically flavored sugar water has nothing that would attract an insect invasion, therefore it may remain unopened or open for an extended period of time without going bad.

On the other hand, who would want to put this stuff in their drinks unless they were poor college students looking to save money while dazzling the ladies?

Both solid and top-of-the-line grenadines will be fine unopened, but the pace at which they deteriorate will vary significantly.

Top grenadines produced from real fruit provide the ideal substrate for invading bugs, therefore they decay considerably quicker than ones composed entirely of liquid juices.

I bring up these distinctions because it is essential to realize that the shelf-life of grenadine isnt a one size fits all situation.

3. We use Grenadine in a way that means it sits around for a long time after we open it

Grenadine is a key ingredient in many of your favorite drinks, including my personal favorite, Tequila Sunrise (drool), Singapore Sling, Pineapple Vodka, Malibu Sunset, and the Mary Pickford.

As an addition, there is a probability that a bottle of grenadine may sit on any shelf save one in a popular cocktail bar for quite some time before being used, perhaps for months.

Given the potential lifetime of a bottle of grenadine in a drinks cabinet or bar shelf, it is natural to wonder whether grenadine needs refrigeration to increase its shelf-life, and if so, what kind of shelf-life can we anticipate from a typical bottle of grenadine.

The argument is that the only reason a sweet beverage like grenadine may rot is because the way we use it means that bottles of it might lie about for a long timevirtually from one party or social event to another, which could be an eternity.

Lets face it, we don’t normally throw extravaganzas just because we have a bottle of grenadine that has to be used up.

Storing Grenadine and Protecting It From Spoiling

There’s a solid case to be made that grenadine never spoils; it only becomes weird. The powerful preservation activity of concentrated sugar in grenadine protects against the bacteria that cause food poisoning (more on this below).

Instead, your uninvited visitors are like small hooligans, roughing up juices and causing them to split and become unpleasant with one another, so that no amount of shaking can bring them back together happily.

When a bottle of grenadine has gone bad, you’ll notice a crust forming around the top. You could believe that being a sweet syrup is entirely natural, but you’d be mistaken. This crust occurs because active small bugs are having a field day messing with liquid chemistry, and oxidation helps them out.

To avoid all of this, keep your unopened bottle of grenadine in a cool, dry spot that is not exposed to direct sunlight. While you don’t have to put the bottle in a dark place, it wouldn’t hurt to put it somewhere dry and cool.

It’s a whole other ballgame once you open the bottle of grenadine. Take advantage of the big opportunity, critters, and go all Freddy Krueger on your poor old grenadine. The easiest approach to cope with this is to keep the bottle in the refrigerator. This calms the bugs down and significantly reduces their raucousness.

Storing Grenadine–Durations Before Spoilage Occurs

Unopened and kept in a cool, dry place, excellent grenadines may last a year or more. However, I doubt if youve bought grenadine for the pleasure of just staring at it, so it is more likely that youve already opened the bottle and used part of it.

If not chilled and properly maintained, opened bottles of grenadine endure barely a month or two. Open bottles of grenadine may be kept refrigerated for up to six months. It is also vital to remember that once deterioration has occurred, it is too late to refrigerate the grenadine.You cannot undo spoiling.

Frequently Asked Questions on Does Grenadine Need to Be Refrigerated?