Passion Fruit and Gin Fizz Cocktail

This Passion Fruit Gin Fizz Cocktail is bursting with flavor and incredibly simple to make! Passion fruit is the main star of the show in this gin based cocktail, with it’s heavy tropical flavors that lean very slightly tart. A passion fruit drink mix is used to ensure a sweet component is present to balance out the tart flavor of passion fruit. As well, actual passion fruit pulp can be added to the cocktail as well, but are completely optional, as they can be hard to find sometimes. As the name suggests, this cocktail favors gin as the spirit, for it’s slightly bitter taste, which pairs beautifully with the tropical flavors. And lastly, a few shakes of lemon bitters really round out this drink, adding a delightful citrus note which livens this whole thing up even further!

Inspiration for this Passion Fruit Gin Cocktail

I was walking through a local specialty grocery store the other day, truly in awe of all the beautiful fruits and vegetables that were on display – purple asparagus, figs, candy cane beets, among many other things (I swear unique fruits and vegetables are like an art form to me!).

There I was eyeing down the purple asparagus, when out of the corner of my eye I saw these cute little purple spheres – little passion fruits! I became a little too excited, and began imagining all the possibilities I could do with these amazing little fruits. Then, I remembered I had a jug of passion fruit drink mix at my house that has been sitting in my pantry, unopened for months! And being that it is nearing summer, that became my ah-ha moment! I knew I had to make some sort of cocktail with it!

I got home and began experimenting. Vodka was great, but didn’t add anything to the passion fruit cocktail and it quickly became too sweet. Other liquors just didn’t mingle well with the passion fruit. So I finally landed on gin as the spirit, as its bitter properties nicely balanced the sweetness of the passion fruit. A touch of lemon bitters were thrown in to brighten up the passion fruit gin cocktail, and I scooped the insides of the beautiful little passion fruit into the cocktail and BAM, I had one snazzy drink!

What is Passion Fruit?

Now, if you’ve never had passion fruit before, than boy are you in for a treat! The fruit is the embodiment of tropical flavors! The fruit itself looks, as I mentioned above, like a dark purple little sphere, and about the size of a small-ish lime. The interior, however, is a much different story. The inside is filled with a bright yellow pulpy juice interior that is scattered with seeds.

The flavor is slightly sweet, while also being quite tart. It is extremely aromatic – you can smell its gorgeous tropical scent as soon as you cut into it, making it excellent for cocktails!

In this cocktail I used passion fruit concentrated drink mix, which should be relatively easy to find at most grocery stores. The brand I used was Sunquick. Passion fruit drink mix is sweeter than regular passion fruit juice, however if you cannot find the concentrated mix, passion fruit juice will work as well – you just need more juice and less club soda.

How to Assemble

As I stated above, this passion fruit gin fizz cocktail really is super easy to make! Simply fill a 16oz highball glass up with ice, then pour 1 ½ oz of gin over top. Proceed that with 2 oz of passion fruit drink mix (if using juice, use an extra ounce or so). Then top with club soda and a few shakes of lemon bitters. Give the drink a good stir, and then, if using, scoop the pulp of ½ of a passion fruit into each cocktail! Feel free to further garnish with mint as well.