some things are just better homemade
February 16, 2010 - 12:38pm | by Daniel Priseman
We posted a blog about homemade syrups a while back http://www.bittersandtwisted.com/content/ahhhhh-how-sweet and had a few people contact us looking for recipes that any bartender could use to get started. You know the sorts of syrups that are essential to certain drinks but that the commercial ones available leave a bit to be desired. So as we are always keen to please, we contacted a few friends who make their own to get their best recipes.
We started with a couple of syrups essential to tiki drinks (but also called for in many classic cocktail books). Orgeat and grenadine are two syrups that can transform a drink, but after a syrups tasting I did for Imbibe magazine last year, I was left thinking that the shop bought ones were pretty poor. Paul bases his recipes on a 50/50 sugar syrup (controversial, but having tasted the results who are we to argue?) which he makes in bulk, taking equal parts sugar and water and boiling them gently for about 20 minutes with crème de tartar (1/4 teaspoon will do 6 litres)
So here are a couple of recipes that Paul Bradley gave us that really hit the mark:
GRENADINE
To 1 litre of sugar syrup add the seeds and flesh of 1 ripe pomegranite and a small handful of raspberries, bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 – 10 minutes stirring frequently. Strain into a bowl and allow to cool. Bottle and use within a couple of months for best results. The Pomegranite must be ripe and full of juice so this is very much a seasonal recipe!
BERMUDIANA ROSE – Cafe Royal Cocktail Book
30 ml gin
15 ml apricot brandy
15 ml grenadine
15 ml lemon juice
shake all ingredients with cubed or cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or coupe. The recipe makes no mention of a garnish but trust me a good lemon twist is what’s needed with this one!
ORGEAT
For this you will need to make some barley water by simply boiling a small handful of barley in a little over a litre of water. Strain the barley water, retaining the liquid and use equal parts barley water and sugar to make a syrup, once this comes to the boil add 1 cup of cracked almonds and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Take off the heat and add 2-3 barspoons of orange blossom water.
MAI TAI – Trader Vic’s
60 ml rum (Appleton’s 12yo works well)
juice of 1 lime
1 barspoon gomme
1 barspoon orgeat
10 ml orange curacao
shake and strain over crushed or cubed ice and garnish with half the spent shell of the lime and a sprig of mint.
While looking through a few classic cocktail books for recipes to add to our database, I couldn’t help but notice that raspberry syrup seems to have been a popular sweetener back in the day. So here’s my recipe for that:
RASPBERRY SYRUP
Take 2 cups of sugar and one of water and add a cup of raspberries and about 10g of dried orange peel. Bring all ingredients to a boil stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Strain the liquid and allow to cool before adding 25ml of vodka (50% abv if you have it to hand) and bottle. The syrup will last for months, but the flavour is best when used in the first 6 weeks after making. Obviously you can substitute any berry you like into this recipe for different syrups.
CHANTICLER COCKTAIL – The Savoy Cocktail Book
50 ml Gin
20 ml lemon juice
15 ml raspberry syrup
1 egg white
Shake with cubed or cracked ice and strain into a ‘medium sized glass’ according to the book. We use a coupe and garnish either with a fresh raspberry or a lemon twist as the mood takes us!
PASSION FRUIT SYRUP
In a saucepan add 2 cups of sugar to one of water and the pulp and seeds of 3 ripe passion fruit. Bring to the boil stirring frequently and add a couple of lemon peels and an orange peel (about 2 inches long each). Simmer the liquid for about 5 minutes and then strain and cool. Bottle and add a splash of vodka to stabalise.
ZOMBIE – Trader Vic’s recipe
1 barspoon brown sugar
30 ml lemon juice
30 ml Puerto Rican rum (golden)
30 ml Puerto Rican rum (white)
30 ml 151-proof Demerara rum
30 ml unsweetened pineapple juice
30 ml lime juice
30 ml passion fruit syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
dissolve the brown sugar in the lemon juice and add remaining ingredients and crushed (or cracked as we prefer) ice. Shake well and pour everything into a collins glass and garnish with a mint sprig.
After you have made a few of these syrup recipes you should have the confidence to experiment, so the next time you are flicking through some obscure cocktail book and it calls for lemon syrup, why not grab a saucepan and see what you can come up with? All of the cocktail recipes listed here are infinitely better with a good homemade syrup than with the commercial ones we have found, so a little effort in the kitchen can yield big results behind the bar!
Comments
cool, found some passion
cool, found some passion friuts here in bc. going to make some passion fruit syrup.
let us know what you think
hope you like the recipe and that you find some uses for the syrup. Let us know how it turns out and make sure you try that zombie recipe (I know you may have to improvise on the rums but one white, one gold and one of the older El Dorado range should do the trick…)
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