Syrups and DIY

Buy the hard one, make the rest

Orgeat is almond, sugar, orange flower water, and enough emulsifying that a first batch can split. A bottled non-alc orgeat (the Torani almond orgeat in the kit) is the honest week-one move. Make simple, demerara, cinnamon, and grenadine at home; those are sugar plus water plus one flavor.

Falernum is two different products. Velvet falernum is a liqueur you buy at a liquor store. Non-alcoholic falernum syrup is cloves, lime, ginger, and almond over sugar. Useful when you do not want another bottle of 11% ABV on the cart.

Simple and demerara

Simple syrup: equal parts white sugar and hot water, stir until clear, bottle, refrigerate. It lasts a month. Demerara syrup is the same ratio with demerara or turbinado sugar; it tastes like the rum side of a Navy Grog instead of candy.

1. Weigh or measure 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water.
2. Heat just enough to dissolve. Do not boil for ten minutes unless you want it reduced.
3. Cool, funnel into a clean bottle, label with the date.

Cinnamon syrup

Break 3–4 cinnamon sticks into 1 cup water, simmer 10 minutes, dissolve 1 cup sugar, steep another 10 off heat, strain. That is the syrup in a lot of fall punches and in drinks that ask for cinnamon without a dusty shake of powder on top.

Grenadine that is pomegranate

Real grenadine is pomegranate juice and sugar, optionally orange flower water. Reduce 2 cups juice with 1 cup sugar until it coats a spoon. The red dye bottles are for Shirley Temples. Planter’s Punch can live with the real one.

Orgeat, if you insist on DIY

Blanch 2 cups almonds, blend with 1½ cups water, strain through cloth, dissolve 2 cups sugar in the liquid on low heat, add 1 tsp orange flower water and a drop of almond extract. Bottle cold. It will separate; shake it. If that sounds like a Saturday project, buy the bottle and spend the Saturday squeezing limes.

Falernum syrup (non-alc)

Zest of 4 limes, 1 tbsp sliced ginger, 8 cloves, ½ cup slivered almonds toasted, 2 cups simple syrup. Steep overnight in the fridge, strain. You will not match John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum. You will get lime-clove-almond in a Navy Grog or a swizzle without a liqueur run.

Tools from the catalog: a cutting board, a shaker kit (the tin is a mixing vessel in a pinch), a bottle you already own. Funnels and extra swing-tops are worth a kitchen drawer, not a new product line on this site.

Drinks

Soundtrack

Quiet Village

Martin Denny

1959 · Exotica