Making Passion Fruit Juice

A friend recently asked me if I'd like some passion fruit. "Sure," I said but then I thought to myself,  "Now what?" I knew she had passion fruit growing over a trellis in their backyard. But that's about all I know about passion fruit (except that it's the P in POG--that delicious tropical juice they serve on Hawaiian Airlines). 

She dropped off eleven of them and said to wait until they got a little wrinkly--like a raisin--which took about a week. So that gave me some time to do some internet research. After my research, I decided to make passion fruit juice which was so refreshing and delicious. 

But first, depending on where you live you may not have ever seen a passion fruit. They are usually not carried by most supermarkets. In my online research, I learned that if you don't have a friend with a passion fruit plant you can actually buy passion fruit on Etsy (I haven't tried it...yet). But you can look at the photos to get an idea of what they look like outside and in. Everything on the inside is edible but the skin is not. The seeds are edible and high in fiber. 

The fruit is considered a tropical fruit and it seems to have originated in the southern countries of South America but it now grows in many locations across the globe. It goes by many names around the world. The moment I cut into my first passion fruit I could smell the tropical aromas. I thought to myself, "This SMELLS like Hawaii."

Now, to turn that juice into pulp into juice you need some additional ingredients:

Water: The juice is naturally on the thick side so water helps to dilute the juice. 

Sweetener: Sugar is most obvious choice. But depending on your personal health plan you could go for honey, simple syrup, or any of the non-sugar sweeteners that are out there. What's nice here is that you are in control of the sweetness. 

Optional additional flavorings: Some of things that people like to add to their passion fruit juice are: mint leaves, lime juice, and Angostura bitters.

Passion Fruit Juice

Here's how I made my first batch of passion fruit juice:

Wait - Until the fruit is wrinkly. As it gets wrinkly, the fruit gets heavier with pulp.

Cut - Crosswise near the top so you don't lose as much pulp. I cut the fruit crosswise near the top. That gives you a nice cup of skin and you can scoop out the bulk of the pulp with a spoon. If there's any pulp in the top part you can scoop that out too. Eleven fruit gave me 1 1/2 cups of pulp.

Pulse - Put the pulp into a blender or food processor and give it a couple of pulses. You want to break things up but you don't want to break up the seeds too much. 

Strain - Put the pulsed pulp through a fine mesh sieve. Use the back of spoon to get more juice out. Let it sit for a bit before you discard the seed pulp.

Water - I added 2 cups of water.

Sweetener - I added 1/2 cup simple syrup.

The results were delicious and healthy. I had a glass of the juice after returning home from a long hike and it was so refreshing. You can keep the juice in the fridge for a week or two, at the most. But as it sits it will separate. Don't worry, just stir it up with a wooden spoon and you're good to go. 

Now I must confess that once I had this tropical juice, I was reminded of the excellent tropical martinis we had in Puerto Rico with another couple (pre-hurricanes) that consisted of chili-spiced vodka and tropical fruit juice. We had them over for dinner shortly after I made this first batch of passion fruit juice so I made us the martini using passion fruit juice instead of guava juice. It was delicious and it took us back to those days in Puerto Rico.