Infusions For Cocktails: Flower Syrup Recipes

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This week our kitchen has become a mixologist's haven - flavour after flavour of cocktail syrup bulge from the crowded fridge door, the bottles cheek by jowl with cherry jam, mustards and chilli bean paste. I'm busy scrabbling around for small bottles, sniffing pans infusing, tidying split bags of sugar. There's little that hasn't been infused. From Sichuan peppercorns, to rose, jasmine, chillies, and hibiscus.

And these colourful bottles are not just great for cocktail syrups - I'll use them in ice-creams, to drizzle over cakes, stir into butter cream, ganache, or - just simply - to mix with a little fizz.

Infusing is pretty much the same as making a cup of tea. To work out the initial quantities, I weighed a teabag, saw how much water is in a cup, and then swapped out the tea leaves for pretty much anything else - and hey presto - you've got something quite interesting. Remember the flower syrup recipe needn't be a concentrate if you're adding the syrup directly into a drink - it wants a good, though not overpowering flavour.

As with oranges in marmalade making, if the sugar is added too early, the fruit or flowers won't soften. You may prefer to keep some of the petals when the liquid is strained and add them back into the syrup, especially for use with cakes. For cocktails I discard the flowers - except perhaps with hibiscus where the flower heads look very pretty in the base of a glass of sparkling wine. If the flower syrup is to keep in the fridge for more than a few days, add 3-5g citric acid per litre to help preserve it for longer.

It's useful to keep the proportions in the flower syrup recipe as a 1:1 ratio of liquid to sugar, i.e. a "simple syrup" then they can be used in any cocktail recipe that calls for a syrup. The first cocktail created followed the classic cocktail rule-of-thumb:

2 parts spirit : 1 part lime or lemon juice : 1 part simple sugar syrup

Let's call her a Rosy Lady: 50ml gin, 25ml lime juice, 25ml rose syrup. 15ml of egg white would have been a good addition. The rose syrup replaces the grenadine in a classic pink lady - pale pink, light, refreshing, with a hint of rose - and just a little more grown up. Stunning on a hot day. I'd love to pour another now.

How to Make an Infused Syrup

Pour the boiling water over the flowers or spices, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Leave to continue infusing for an hour or so and strain. If in a rush, remember the tea analogy: use a few more flowers, and strain directly after the simmer.
Weigh the quantity of strained liquid, and add to a saucepan with an equal weight of white sugar.
Heat until the sugar is dissolved and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool, and bottle.

Hibiscus syrup Serves: 10

40g hibiscus flowers
500ml water
40g sugar (use the same weight as the strained infused liquid)

Rose syrup recipe

15g dried rose petals
500ml water approx.
400g sugar (use the same weight as the strained infused liquid)

Sichuan pepper syrup recipe

The taste is a touch bitter, but the lip tingle excites. Only simmer for a minute or two, and leave to cool
5g Sichuan peppercorns
150ml water approx.
125g sugar (use the same weight as the strained infused liquid)

Sichuan long chilli syrup recipe

15g Sichuan long chilli
350ml water approx.
300g sugar (use the same weight as the strained infused liquid)

About the author

Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.

She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.

Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.

She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.

Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.