Also known as pomegranate syrup, commercially produced grenadine syrups today are often flavoured with red berries and cherry juice.

Despite bearing the same rich, blood red colour, unfortunately such syrups don't taste the same as the original recipes intended. These days, you can either buy grenadine syrup - making sure you carefully check the ingredients, or make your own.

How to make grenadine syrup

One way of making your own grenadine syrup is to start by slowly pouring and stirring 2 cups of granulated sugar into a saucepan containing one cup of pomegranate juice. Gently warm the pan until the sugar is dissolved, making sure the temperature of the juice doesn't rise too quickly so that it never starts simmering.

At this stage, you could add half a spilt vanilla pod or some lemon juice for extra flavour. Once the syrup has cooled, fine strain into an empty bottle. Depending on the use-by date of the pomegranate juice, freshly made grenadine syrup can last up to one week if refrigerated.

An alternative, more messy method is to separate the seed cells from the outer membranes and skin of 8-10 pomegranate fruits. These are then simmered in a saucepan with 1oz (25ml) of sugar syrup and half a split vanilla pod, for at least 1 hour. Once the syrup has cooled, strain through a cloth-layered sieve and refrigerate as above.