Seabreeze
A Seabreeze is 40ml of vodka, 120ml of cranberry juice and 30ml of fresh grapefruit juice, built over ice in a highball, with a lime wedge squeezed over and dropped in. About 1.6 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the lime is ours, where the IBA garnishes with orange zest and a cherry. It grew out of a sales campaign. Ocean Spray, the cranberry growers’ cooperative, paired vodka with cranberry in 1945 as the Red Devil, and the drink became the Cape Codder in the early 1960s. Add grapefruit and you have a Seabreeze, though when that first happened is not well recorded. The two juices balance each other. Cranberry sold for drinking is sweetened, and grapefruit is bitter and sharp, so together they finish dry.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Lime wedge
Ingredients
40ml
A clean vodka at 40% ABV. It adds strength and stays out of the way of the juices, where a gin’s juniper or a whisky’s oak would argue with the grapefruit.
120ml
The sweetened cranberry juice sold for drinking, which is what the drink was built on. Check that cranberry is the first ingredient. Fresh unsweetened juice is far too sour here.
30ml
Squeezed the same day. White grapefruit is sharper and more bitter, pink a little softer; both work.
Instructions
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice.
Add the vodka.
Pour in the cranberry juice, then the grapefruit juice.
Stir once.
Squeeze a lime wedge over the top and drop it in.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; lime wedge garnish ours, where the IBA gives orange zest and a cherry). Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Squeeze the grapefruit the same day. Carton grapefruit is pasteurised and tastes flat and slightly cooked, and at 30ml it is the juice that decides the finish. Read the cranberry label. The drink is built on the sweetened juice sold in cartons, but look for cranberry as the first ingredient rather than a blend padded with apple or grape, which makes it sweet whatever else you do. Pour the cranberry, then the grapefruit, and stir once. The lime goes in last, squeezed over the top, to sharpen the finish.
Behind the Seabreeze
Flavour Profile
A Cranberry Growers’ Drink
The Seabreeze descends from a marketing idea. Ocean Spray, the Massachusetts cranberry growers’ cooperative, launched vodka and cranberry as the Red Devil in 1945 to sell more juice. It took the name Cape Codder in the early 1960s, after the peninsula where much of the crop grows.
Grapefruit made the Seabreeze, and pineapple the Bay Breeze. Neither has a recorded inventor or a firm date. The IBA now lists the Sea Breeze at 40ml of vodka, 120ml of cranberry and 30ml of grapefruit, built over ice.
Two Juices That Correct Each Other
Cranberry on its own is too tart to drink, so the juice sold for drinking is sweetened. Poured over vodka alone it makes a sweet drink with nothing to cut it, which is why the Cape Codder needs its lime.
Grapefruit brings bitterness and a sharper acid. At 30ml against 120ml of cranberry it is a small part of the glass and enough to dry the finish. The cranberry softens the grapefruit in return, so a Seabreeze is easier going than a Greyhound.
Why Vodka
Vodka adds strength and almost no flavour, and in a drink about two juices that is its job. Gin would put juniper into the middle of the cranberry and grapefruit, and an aged spirit would add wood to a drink meant to finish clean.
The Cranberry Family
The Seabreeze beside our Cape Codder, Greyhound and Woo Woo
Cape Codder
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml cranberry, a squeezed lime wedge
- Character
- Sweet-tart, dried by the lime
- UK units
- About 2.0
Seabreeze
- Spirit
- 40ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml cranberry, 30ml grapefruit
- Character
- Drier, a little bitter
- UK units
- About 1.6
Greyhound
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml grapefruit
- Character
- Sharp and bitter
- UK units
- About 2.0
Woo Woo
- Spirit
- 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps
- Juice
- 90ml cranberry
- Character
- Sweeter, peach-led
- UK units
- About 2.0
| Drink | Spirit | Juice | Character | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cape Codder | 50ml vodka | 120ml cranberry, a squeezed lime wedge | Sweet-tart, dried by the lime | About 2.0 |
| Seabreeze | 40ml vodka | 120ml cranberry, 30ml grapefruit | Drier, a little bitter | About 1.6 |
| Greyhound | 50ml vodka | 120ml grapefruit | Sharp and bitter | About 2.0 |
| Woo Woo | 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps | 90ml cranberry | Sweeter, peach-led | About 2.0 |
How to Serve It
Tall, over plenty of cubed ice, with the lime squeezed in at the end. Pour the cranberry first and the grapefruit over it; one stir is enough. Drink it while it is cold. A glass left standing in the sun waters down, and more ice slows that rather than speeding it up.
For the parent drink, a Cape Codder; with grapefruit alone, a Greyhound.
Make it at home
The Spirit
VodkaVodka is spirit made from a farmed crop, usually grain or potatoes, distilled and refined so that the taste of that crop is deliberately reduced. Its legal minimum is 37.5% ABV, most bottles are 40%, and it may not be given a predominant flavour, which separates it from flavoured vodka and from gin. In a mixed drink it adds strength and body while the other ingredients carry the taste.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Seabreeze?
Is it Seabreeze or Sea Breeze?
How does it compare with a Cape Codder?
Seabreeze or Greyhound: which is drier?
What is a Bay Breeze?
Does the juice need to be fresh?
How strong is a Seabreeze?
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Cape Codder
A Cape Codder is vodka and cranberry juice with a squeeze of lime: 50ml vodka and 120ml cranberry juice, built over ice in a highball, with a lime wedge squeezed over the top and dropped in. The lime is the difference between a cocktail and vodka in juice. Cranberry sold for drinking is sweetened, and the squeeze puts back the edge. The drink began as a sales idea. Ocean Spray, the Massachusetts cranberry growers’ cooperative, devised it in 1945 as the Red Devil; the Cape Codder name, after the cranberry-growing peninsula, dates from the early 1960s. It is the parent of the Seabreeze and the Bay Breeze, and a more distant relative of the Cosmopolitan. Each drink carries about 2.0 UK units. Check the label on the juice: the drink is only as good as the cranberry in it.
Greyhound
A Greyhound is 50ml of vodka and 120ml of fresh grapefruit juice in a highball full of ice, stirred once and garnished with a grapefruit wheel. About 2.0 UK units. Salt half the rim and the same drink becomes a Salty Dog. Without the salt, nothing softens the grapefruit’s bitterness, and that bitterness is the point: this is a sharp, bracing drink, nearer an aperitif than a Screwdriver. Gin was its first spirit. A 1945 article in Harper’s Magazine describes gin, sugar and canned grapefruit juice served as a greyhound at the Post House restaurants in Greyhound bus terminals. Vodka took over after the Second World War, and gin at the same 50ml still gives a drier glass with more perfume.
Vodka Collins
A Vodka Collins is 50ml of vodka, 25ml of fresh lemon juice and 20ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds, strained over fresh ice in a collins glass and topped with 90ml of soda water, with a lemon wheel and a cherry. About 2.0 UK units. It is the Tom Collins with vodka in the place of gin. London tradition credits the Collins line to John Collins, head waiter at Limmer’s Old House in Mayfair in the early nineteenth century, and Harry Johnson printed a John Collins and a Tom Collins in 1882. Nobody recorded the first Vodka Collins. Vodka adds strength and little flavour, so the lemon, sugar and soda carry the drink. That makes it a plain, clean long drink, and a useful control beside a Tom Collins: the only real change is the spirit.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026