Sugar syrup for cocktails: how to make it, and how long it keeps
Almost every cocktail recipe asks for sugar syrup, and almost nobody has any. It is the most common reason a drink gets made with a spoon of sugar stirred straight in, which never dissolves properly and leaves grit in the bottom of the glass.
It takes three minutes to fix permanently.
The recipe
Equal parts white sugar and water. One cup of each makes enough for around twenty drinks.
- Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan over a medium heat.
- Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved and the liquid runs clear. It does not need to boil. As soon as you cannot see any grains, it is done.
- Take it off the heat and let it cool completely.
- Pour it into a clean bottle or jar and keep it in the fridge.
That is the whole thing. No thermometer, no reducing, no simmering for twenty minutes. Boiling it hard just evaporates water and makes it thicker than the recipe expects.
How long it keeps
About a month in the fridge in a sealed bottle. You will know it has gone when it turns cloudy or you see anything floating in it, at which point tip it out and make more. It costs about fifty cents a batch.
If you want it to last longer, add a tablespoon of vodka to the cooled syrup. The alcohol holds off spoilage and pushes it out to a few months. You cannot taste it in a finished drink.
Rich syrup, and when to use it
Two parts sugar to one part water instead of equal parts. It is sweeter and thicker, so you use less of it, and it keeps longer because there is less water in it for anything to grow in.
Use it in spirit-forward drinks where you do not want to water things down. An Old Fashioned is the obvious one. Stick with equal parts for anything shaken and citrusy.
Flavouring it
This is where it gets interesting, and it is the cheapest way to make a drink taste like it came from a bar.
Drop a handful of dried citrus slices into the syrup while it is still warm and leave them to steep as it cools. Dried fruit works better than fresh here because the flavour is concentrated and there is no extra water going in. Dried orange gives you something that lifts a whiskey drink; dried lemon sharpens up anything with gin.
Our Citrus Seconds are ideal for this at $11.50 a bag. They are the slices that did not make the cut on looks, which matters not at all once they are in a saucepan.
A few dried rose petals or cornflowers from our edible florets will give a floral syrup for gin drinks. Use a light hand, and strain it before bottling.
How much to use
Most shaken cocktails want 10 to 20ml. Start at 10, taste, add more if it needs it. It is much easier to sweeten a drink than to unsweeten one.
Everything we make is handcrafted in small batches here in the Waikato, using real fruit and natural ingredients. Browse the dried citrus range, with free shipping on orders over $100.