A Sea breeze is a cocktail containing vodka with cranberry juice and grapefruit juice. The cocktail is consumed during the summer because the fruit juices and the fruity appearance makes the drink refreshing. The drink may be shaken in order to create a foamy surface. It is considered an IBA Official Cocktail.
The drink follows the classic cocktail principle of balancing strong (alcohol) with weak (fruit juice) and sweet and sour. 1
A bay breeze, or a Hawaiian sea breeze, is similar to a sea breeze except that pineapple juice is used instead of grapefruit juice.
The cocktail was born in the late 1920s, but the recipe was different from the one used today, as gin and grenadine were used in the original sea breeze. 2 This was near the end of the Prohibition era.
In popular culture
In the television series Angel, the character Lorne is strongly partial to sea breeze cocktails. In fact, the Lorne collectible figure is accessorized with a miniature glass of sea breeze. 3
In Just Shoot Me!, Dennis Finch always ordered this drink. In one episode, his father orders "boilermaker, boilermaker, boilermaker" for his three sons, to which Finch interjects by ordering himself a "sea breeze".
In the 2005 film Red Eye, Jackson Rippner pushes Lisa Reisert against a wall and yells, "I think you're not such an honest person. Because I've been following you for eight weeks now, and I never once saw you order anything but a fucking Sea Breeze!", referring to earlier in the movie before they boarded the plane, where both were sitting together at a terminal restaurant and Jackson was trying to "guess" which drink Lisa would order. He guessed the "Grapefruit Sea Breeze", which Lisa then replied to Rippner by ordering a Bay Breeze from the bartender.
In the 1995 film "French Kiss", Meg Ryan's character, Kate orders a Sea Breeze on the beach in Cannes, while confronting her ex-fiancé and his new fiancé whom he left her for.