6 Essential Cocktail Syrups for your home bar
Create 6 essential (super easy!) syrups for your home bar. These simple to create ingredients can help to elevate your cocktails! With these home made syrups you can recreate classic cocktails and add some fun twists to your own drinks as well.
Syrups are a great way to introduce flavour to a cocktail and put a simple twist on your favourite classic. Drinks like the classic Collins offer a limitless number of variations.
01. Simple syrup
The OG and truly an essential. Simple syrup as the name suggests is very simple make.
Simple Syrup – This is traditionally made at a (1:1) ratio of 1 part sugar to 1 part water and should take about 3 minutes to prepare.
Rich Simple Syrup – Same as the Simple Syrup (above) but has a ratio of (2:1) 2 parts sugar to 1 part of water, hence the ‘Rich’ descriptor. It too should take about 3 minutes to prepare.
02. Fruit Syrups
A fruit syrup is not only good for cocktails, but can also be poured over desserts, cake, ice cream or anything else you might want to turn into a delicious sticky mess.
It really is easy to make. All you need to do is replace the water in your Simple Syrup or Rich Simple Syrup with fresh fruit juice, pressed ginger juice or the like. As always, we prefer the ‘rich’ style, but the choice is yours.
03. Nut syrups
The most famous of the nut based syrups is the Almond flavoured Orgeat (ohr-zhat), used in some iconic recipes and some very tasty modern cocktails. You can buy Orgeat, but you should know how to make it too. That way, you can easily make any nut-based syrup you might want to try in your cocktails.
04. Vanilla syrup
Yes, you can easily buy vanilla syrups in stores these days, but if you want to elevate your drink, or you can’t find a decent one in the shops, you can make your own, very easily. Check out how to here and use it o make a delicious Vanilla Lemonade.
05. Tea syrup
A very simple way to bring the delicious flavours of tea into your cocktails.
We recommend making Tea Syrups as ‘Rich’ Tea Syrups following a 2:1 ratio. 2 parts sugar to 1 part brewed Tea. (You can follow the same process and make it at a 1:1 ratio if you prefer, but read here for reasons why we recommend a ‘Rich’ Syrup).
06. Honey Syrup
We’re going to let you in on a secret here, when you see “Honey Syrup” listed on a menu, you should know it’s simply a mixture of honey and water. Nothing more complicated than that!
It may be simple, but it’s a highly effective way of adding honey to a cocktail. If you try and use honey straight out of the jar, no matter how runny it might be, it can be very tricky to handle. If it goes anywhere near ice or cold liquids it will go hard and refuse to dissolve. It gets stuck to equipment, glasses and most importantly, if it’s sticking to things and not dissolving then it’s not adding sweetness to your drink, and therefore your drink will be unbearably sour!
As always, don’t forget to show us what you made by tagging us!
@Candra_Drinks #MakeBetterDrinks #CandraDrinks
