Hibiscus

Unsweetened it is citric acid and dye. The ratio is the entire recipe.

Heat under acid stops the drink reading as thin. Christmas in the Caribbean.

Citric acid and anthocyanin. Colour, plus a sourness the yeast did not make.

Citric on top of malic. Two acids that taste nothing alike doing one job.

Eugenol gives the acid a warm floor. Without it the calyx tastes like a sweet.

Menthol cools an already cold drink and covers the tannic finish.

Furaneol sweetness answers the acid the fruit cannot supply on its own.

Same anthocyanin, same brutal acid. One is a berry, one is a sepal.

Two tart florals; the hibiscus supplies the tannin the hip never manages alone.

Hard citric acid and a tannic edge; it does what lime does but leaves colour behind.

Molasses sugar takes the edge off, and the acid stops the rum sitting sticky.

Geosmin earth under red acid. The colour is not the only thing they share.

Both perfumed reds, but hibiscus has the acid rose spends its life missing.

Both dried, both tart, both red. One drinkable, one not, blended anyway.

Sour red acid used as a braising liquid; tannin and tartness in one pour.

Red acid with no fruit sugar. A cherry sauce with the pudding removed.

Fructose is what stops calyx acid stripping the enamel off your teeth.

Braise the spent calyces; they shred like meat and keep every bit of the sour.

Reduce it to a glaze. Fruit-acid on fat, doing the job an orange sauce does.

Already sour and floral. Acid pushes the colour redder as the pH drops.

Two sour reds stacked; the flower supplies the tannin the fruit only hints at.

Both magenta, both sharp. The flower acid does the pickling.

Tart floral acid: a fruit sauce that skipped the sugar entirely.

Oily fish wants a sharp cure. This one stains it magenta as a side effect.