RTD Revolution

Now, before we tell you how to make this cocktail – and this is the perfect episode for this to be happening – we need to ask you to visualize it first. Are you picturing it served up in a stemmed cocktail glass, or are you envisioning it in a rocks glass or maybe even a collins glass over ice?

The answer is yes. There seems to be very little consensus about this online – which is a data point in and of itself. Most hard-core bartenders out there are wired to see citrus juice and immediately go into shaker mode. But then again, this drink is clearly in the Paloma family – at least tangentially – and you don’t shake those.

Here, we’re tempted to take a page from the late, great Gaz Regan’s book and tell you to put ice in the glass of your choice. Add your liquid ingredients, and give it a stir with your digitus secundus manus – which is your pointer finger. Stick it in there, and give those ingredients a frosty jostle.

The Greyhound has a cool history and a few interesting little riffs (which was a thing in the mid-20th century. You’d make a cocktail and then little riffs with fun names would start crawling out of the woodwork). But we don’t have time to get into all of those in this episode.

The takeaways for the Greyhound cocktail are that it’s quick and easy, and as long as you’re not on any sort of medication that doesn’t jive well with grapefruit juice (which is a real-world issue), it’s a great, refreshing option when you’re jonesing for a Paloma but don’t have bubbles or tequila.

Show Notes

This episode was recorded during the recent American Distilling Institute judging of craft spirits, where Eric was lucky enough to sit side-by-side with these awesome folks and give feedback that helps craft distillers improve their products.

There’s a lot of things that make ADI (the American Distilling Institute) really special. But in this episode, we’re going to focus on the fact that they are probably the leading organization when it comes to giving feedback to the producers of “ready-to-drink” (or RTD) cocktails.

Anybody who’s ever cracked open a White Claw hard seltzer knows that this drink segment is gaining momentum in a way that’s fairly unprecedented in the US drinks space – pushing more traditional canned beverages off the shelves and – for better or worse – revolutionizing the way that many people drink.