Use pure cane sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar or even maple syrup. Use as much sugar as you want and include an equal portion of liquid. The best way to make this is in a small saucepan on the stovetop. Make homemade simple syrup by dissolving sugar in water over medium heat until the water becomes a rich simple syrup.

Other Sweeteners: You can also create amazing flavors using brown sugar or honey.

Spices: cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice, ginger, vanilla bean.

Herbs: mint, elderflower, lavender, rosemary.

Berries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries.

However, you can make different types of simple syrup by adding fruit, herbs, spices or zest. Water and white sugar are the basic ingredients for rich simple syrup recipes. The more sugar is in the syrup, the longer it lasts. Mix 1 part water with 2 parts sugar (1 cup of water + 2 cups of sugar). The most popular mix is 1 part water and 1 part sugar (1 cup of water + 1 cup of sugar), this is called basic simple syrup. For light syrup mix 2 parts water with 1 part sugar (1 cup of water + ½ cup of sugar). Generally there are 3 common mixing ratios. You can flavor simple syrup with zest, spices, herbs and fruit. Bring it to a boil, take off the heat and let cool completely. Then stir the mixture over medium/high heat until the sugar has dissolved. Since posting this in 2011, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear.You can make basic simple syrup by combining 1 part of water with 1 part of sugar. Recipe updated, originally posted October 2011. A similar process works with spices - think whole cloves, star anise, and cinnamon. As the syrup sits and cools, the flavors of citrus and mint will steep into the syrup. Turn off the heat, and then add a handful of citrus peel and fresh mint leaves. Bring everything to a simmer and cook until the sugar dissolves.

To make citrus mint flavored simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water.

Clover honey is mild and sweet while orange blossom honey might be a nice touch for cocktails that call for citrus. For honey syrup, experiment with different honeys.

To make honey simple syrup, use a one-to-one ratio of honey and water to make a mild flavored honey syrup or increase the honey to two parts and mix with one part water for a stronger honey flavor.Bring it to a simmer and cook until the sugar has dissolved. To make brown simple syrup, combine equal parts light or dark brown sugar with water.In the video, we make a mint citrus simple syrup. By making a honey simple syrup, you thin out the honey while keeping the flavor.Īnother idea is to make a flavored simple syrup. Pure honey is thick and doesn’t fully dissolve into the cocktail. Honey is also a nice idea, especially since using pure honey in cocktails is tricky. Swapping white sugar for brown sugar makes a rich, almost caramel-like syrup that works well in cocktails like this Old Fashioned or our Lemon Drop Martini. You can even play around when making simple syrup. However, this doesn’t mean that you couldn’t make the syrup richer by using more sugar or leaner by using less sugar. The most common ratio for simple syrup is equal parts water to sugar. You only need two ingredients for your basic simple syrup recipe: water and sugar. Here’s another syrup for you! Our Lemon Ginger Syrup is delicious in cocktails, mocktails, and teas.

Simple syrup is ridiculously easy to make, and since it lasts a while in the fridge, we can make one large batch and go back to it each time we want to make a cocktail.

Simple syrup shelf life