Forever Red

 The forever red cocktail is inspired by this Bath and Body Works fragrance:

About the fragrance

I first purchased this fragrance as a body lotion in 2021. I ordered it online based on reviews saying that it was similar to several other scents I liked (A Thousand Wishes, Velvet Sugar, and Cashmere Glow.) I liked the body lotion, so I eventually purchased the fragrance mist as well. The scent is currently only available as a shower gel online.

The scent notes listed for this fragrance are:

Fiery pomegranate

Red peony

Rich vanilla rum

Oak wood 

Designing the cocktail

I used pomegranate juice as the mixer. I ordered dried peony petals (they're edible!) from the Etsy shop Woodwell. I couldn't find vanilla rum at my local grocery store, so I used white rum and prepared a homemade vanilla simple syrup for the vanilla note. I didn't know how to approximate an oak wood note, so I left that out.

Recipe

2 oz vanilla rum

1 oz vanilla simple syrup

6 oz pomegranate juice

Peony petals

Place two ice cubes in a glass. Add vanilla rum and vanilla simple syrup. Pour in pomegranate juice. Sprinkle peony petals on top. For a non-alcoholic version, omit the vanilla rum.

Note: if vanilla rum is unavailable, substitute white rum.

The finished cocktail

To be honest, this cocktail was not my favorite. The pomegranate juice was very tart, and together with the rum it overpowered the vanilla flavor. The peony petals lent a bitter taste. I would recommend this cocktail to people who don't like things too sweet and are curious about edible flowers.