Homemade Passion Fruit Syrup for the best cocktails

What is is about Fruit syrups?

I am always making fruit syrups at home, mostly made out of fresh fruits. Berries and exotic fruits like passion fruit are my favorite! I use these syrups to make cocktails, or as a sauce to top desserts or other goodies, like breakfast pancakes!

How to choose ripe passion fruit that will make a great syrup?

Passion fruit is the fruit of the Passiflora vine, which is a type of flower. It is tough on the outside but inside of it hides a very juicy and sweet, seed filled center!

I must admit, it’s taken me some time to learn how to tell the good passion fruits apart from the bad ones, mostly because this is not a fruit that was available to me when I was growing up. Now finally I have learned how to choose ripe passion fruit! Here is what you should look for:

1. Choose the fruits that have a slight give when you press on them. You don’t want them too soft, but not too hard either.
2. Ripe passion fruit will have a nice color – either dark purple or yellow mostly. Purple passion fruit is grown in Hawaii, Florida and California, which is mostly what I have seen around here in South Florida.
3. Wrinkled fruit is more ripe than smooth fruit and will most likely be sweeter.

Here is my recipe for a wonderful passion fruit syrup. I don’t like to cook my fruit with sugar, even though that is the traditional method of syrup making. I prefer to purée my fruit, strain it, and then mix in some simple syrup and water if needed.