Sea Breeze Cocktail

The sea breeze cocktail is a vodka drink built with vodka, grapefruit juice, and cranberry juice.

Sea Breeze Cocktail Info

There are people that speculate that the Sea Breeze is linked to the 1960s post-cranberry panic. Yes, cranberries were once controversial. Many berries from the Pacific Northwest were found to have traces of aminotriazole in them in November 1959. This herbicide is a bog weed killer and can cause cancer in laboratory rats. At the time, the U.S. Secretary for Health advised Americans to avoid cranberries if they were unsure of their origin.

The impact on cranberry growers was evident. Ocean Spray, a small growers' association formed in 1930, began publishing recipe books to encourage the consumption of cranberries in all forms.

Ocean Spray archives reveal that Ocean Spray began offering cranberry-centric cocktails with vodka and grapefruit in the 1960s. A recipe card and two 'Cranberry Kitchen' newsletters include cranberry juice and grapefruit, but not the Sea Breeze specifically! Says Christina Ferzli from Ocean Spray. I can recall that there were several versions of the Sea Breeze cocktail. But Ocean Spray added cranberry to it."

It turned out that the 1-2-3 cocktail was a ruby-hued variation on another drink. "The American bartenders were not well-versed in American recipes, so many recipes were lost or had to be modified to suit the ingredients," says Freddie Sarkas (head bartender at Liquor Lab) in Manhattan. The Harpoon, a simple drink made with gin, cranberry, and vodka, was launched. This drink would become the Cape Codder as well as the Sea Breeze.