Cocktails with Fresh raspberries

Fresh raspberries are the soft, hollow-cored aggregate fruit of Rubus idaeus, prized in cocktails for their bright color and tart-sweet flavor.

Substitutes for Fresh raspberries

Fresh berry brings acidity and color together and almost nothing else does both. A syrup brings the color with sugar attached, so the recipe needs its sweetening cut; a frozen berry keeps everything except the shape.

Often confused with

Blackberries

Firmer, darker and less aromatic, with a woody core that survives pressing; they color a drink toward purple where raspberry stays red.

Raspberry syrup and liqueur

Both are concentrated and sweet, and neither brings fresh acidity. Chambord is the best-known liqueur, though it is a blend led by black raspberry rather than a straight framboise; dedicated framboise liqueurs are the closer analogue. Either way the drink needs its syrup cut and its lemon kept.

Storage

Three to five days refrigerated at best, unwashed and uncovered enough to breathe. They are among the most perishable berries on the shelf, and one furry berry infects the punnet within a day through Botrytis spores. Wash them only as they go into the drink.