The Holiday’s Best Pama Drink (Bourbon Pomegranate Cocktail)

Last Updated on March 10, 2024 by Heather Wibbels

Your holiday season will be festive and bright with this Pama drink in hand! It’s a bright bourbon pomegranate cocktail featuring Pama liqueur. It’s a simple, sip-worthy riff on an old fashioned, with a pop of pomegranate flavor and coffee bitters.

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With the holidays around the corner I’m thinking of fast and easy holiday cocktails I can make and batch for parties with families and friends, and this pomegranate cocktail shines with festive, seasonal flavors.

With just bourbon or whiskey, the liqueur, a splash of grenadine and some chocolate bitters, this mixed drink is fast to make for a quick evening sip.

The sweet, tart flavor of the fruit, along with its brilliant red color, make this Pama old fashioned a must-make for any party this season.

Best Liqueur for the Pama Drink

I use PAMA liqueur. It’s easy to find near me since I live in Louisville and it’s made by Brown-Forman (based in Louisville).

Liqueurs range in the amount of alcohol by volume, but Pama pomegranate liqueur is 17 percent ABV, which is 35 proof. It comes in two sizes, 50 ml and 750 ml.

If you can’t find Pama near you, there are a few other brands available. Any large, well-stocked liquor store will carry them. 

You won’t need much, but a 750 mL bottle liqueur is enough for quite a few batches of this Pama drink. This way you can make batch cocktails for several parties.

Flavors in This Bourbon Pomegranate Cocktail

Pama liqueur

Many people turn to pomegranate gin or vodka drinks (or blueberry, like my blueberry cake donut cocktail), but adding whiskey and bourbon to this fruity old fashioned is a stellar move.

Grenadine

I also include just a bar spoon of high-quality or homemade grenadine, for vibrancy and just a touch of fullness to the mouthfeel of the cocktail. 

Coffee bitters

But the star of the show and the surprise that makes this cocktail a gem is the addition of coffee bitters. Like blueberries and pineapple, pomegranate is another surprisingly delicious pairing with coffee!

If you don’t have coffee bitters, chocolate bitters also work, but I preferred the coffee bitters to the chocolate.

Rye bourbon

For the base spirit in this Pama drink, I use a high rye bourbon. I’m partial to both Four Roses Small Batch bourbon and Old Forester bourbon for this drink recipe. Both are sweet enough to counteract that slight sourness from the pomegranate, but with a bit of spice and pepper to keep the drink interesting.

How to Open a Pomegranate

There are many ways to open a pomegranate, but the easiest way I’ve found is to cut off about ½ inch from the top, then score about ¼” into the fruit, following along the white partitions. Once done, you simply pull it apart, similar to sectioning an orange. 

Watch this easy video to see how it’s done: The Best Way To Cut Open a Pomegranate

How to Make a Festive Pama Drink

Like the classic Old Fashioned cocktail, this pomegranate drink variation has you add the ingredients to a mixing glass, add ice, and stir for 30 seconds.

Strain the drink into a rocks glass with one large cube and garnish with a few of the pom arils.

To make an extra festive looking drink, skewer the arils and place them over the top of the rocks glass.

PRO TIP:
For this bourbon pomegranate cocktail, if you’d like a little extra fruity flavor, add a few arils to the bottom of the mixing glass over the Pama liqueur. Then, muddle the arils for some fresh pomegranate juice before adding the rest of the ingredients.

How to Batch the Pomegranate Cocktail for a Crowd

One of the reasons I love this drink is that it’s so easy to batch. To make a batch of 8-10 cocktails, combine the following:

• 2 cups bourbon
• 1/2 cup PAMA Pomegranate liqueur
• 1/2 tablespoon spoon high-quality grenadine can sub a splash of pomegranate juice
• 12 dashes coffee bitters can sub chocolate, but it is not as good
• 1/2 cup water

Combine ingredients in a large picture or in a 1 L bottle and shake to combine. Refrigerate at least 4 hours. This will keep in the fridge indefinitely. To serve, pour over ice and add fresh arils to the top.

How to Make Your Own Coffee Bitters

If you don’t have coffee bitters on hand, the easiest solution is to take some angostura or orange bitters and infuse it with cracked dark roast coffee beans. Here’s how:

Decant 2 oz of your bitters into a small jar. Add 1-2 tablespoons of cracked dark roast coffee beans. I put them into a plastic bag and use my kitchen hammer or a rolling pin. Let them infuse for 24 to 48 hours, or longer if you want it bursting with coffee flavor.

Strain the bitters through a fine sieve and pour into a small dropper or dasher bottle. You can store them safely at room temperature as you would any other bitters.

Other Pama Liqueur Drinks You Might Enjoy

• Pomegranate Brandy Sour
• Chocolate Pomegranate Manhattan

Or, for other seasonal flavored alcoholic drinks, these are great options!

• Eggnog Espresso Martini
• Cranberry Whiskey Cocktail

Facts about Pomegranates

Native to the Middle East, pomegranates are considered berries. Their brilliant red color inside and out attests to the high-levels of antioxidants in them, and they are considered a superfood.

While you can juice a pomegranate with an electric juicer, putting a wedge of a pomegranate in a hand citrus juice will give you a healthy splash of juice as well. 

Pomegranate seeds are called arils, and there can be between 400 to 1000 or more in one fruit. 

They will keep in the fridge for up to 2 months, although if you remove the arils (seeds) and refrigerate them, you’ll only have a few days to eat them before their flavor starts to change.

It’s said that pomegranates were the seeds Persephone ate that kept her in Hades’ underworld for 6 months of the year after she ate 6 seeds. Hades had kidnapped her away from Demeter, her mother, and her mother, the goddess of fertility and agriculture, let plants and crops die as she mourned her daughter being kept in the underworld.

This post, originally published October 2021, was updated with new content March 2023.