Combine these ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake gently to combine, then strain into a chilled, stemmed cocktail glass, and enjoy. If possible, it’s a great idea to get your Kentucky 74 – or any other no-ABV spirit you’re planning to mix with – fairly cold before putting it in the shaker. This is because no-ABV cocktails tend to suffer from a lack of body in the first place, so by diluting them even further, you’re simply not allowing the ingredient to be the best version of itself. The same goes for the honey syrup here – which will need to be refrigerated anyway – and if you can pre-juice your grapefruit and chill it down, so much the better. We’ll actually be talking a bit more about the topic of dilution in no-ABV cocktails during next week’s episode, so be sure to stay tuned.
One other thing we’d like to note about this “brown derby” format is…it turns out it’s kinda flexible. If you think about it, this cocktail is basically a Paloma served “up” and without the bubbles. Lauren and her team leaned into this by including a bottle of sparkling pink grapefruit soda from Fever Tree in the box that they sent us, and we thought it was such a smart riff on Bourbon plus grapefruit because it amped up the mouthfeel with some bubbles. Plus, as nice as a short drink can be, sometimes at the end of the day, you just want something that looks a little bit more like a highball.
