Candied Grapefruit Cocktail

Ingredients

Candied grapefruit:

2 large pink grapefruits
5 cups sugar (1 cup separated)
Water

Cocktail:

30mL gin
120mL freshly squeezed grapefuit juice
1 tsp agave nectar
2 candied grapefruit peels
Grapefruit wedge and sugar for glass (to serve)

Method

Candied grapefruit:

Cut grapefruits into 4 wedges and remove the peel.

Place wedges aside and cut peels into chunks. Place them in a pot with 2cm of water covering them and begin to boil. Once boiled, remove from heat, strain and place back into pot with fresh water to boil again.

Repeat the previous step 4 times.

After it has boiled a fourth time, strain peels and set aside.

In the pot, add 4 cups water and 4 cups sugar. Stir until combined then add peels back in.

Boil mixture on high heat for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally until large opaque bubbles form and peels become translucent.

Strain mixture over a heatproof bowl so you can keep the simple syrup for different cocktails.

Place 1 cup sugar in a bowl and add hot grapefruit peels, mixing them around until they are completely covered. Save leftover sugar for decorating the rim of your glasses.


Cocktail:

Run a wedge of grapefruit around glasses and dip in leftover sugar. Fill glass with ice.

In a shaker, add ice, grapefruit, agave and gin. Shake several times.

Pour into glass. Slide two candied grapefruit peels onto wooden skewer and place on rim of glass.