Home › Cold Drinks › Sugar Syrup
Sugar Syrup
To every half cupful of water use one cupful of sugar and boil slowly for five minutes. Bottle and keep on ice ready for immediate use in making fruit juice drinks.
This is what bartenders call rich simple syrup — two parts sugar to one part water, rather than the equal-parts version used today. The only thing worth watching is that it dissolves without crystallizing.
- The ratioOne cup sugar to half a cup water is a 2:1 syrup, appreciably sweeter by volume than the 1:1 syrup most modern drink recipes assume — on the order of half again as sweet, since the dissolved sugar itself adds volume. If you are following a current recipe for lemonade or a cocktail, use rather less of this than called for, perhaps two-thirds to three-quarters as much.
- Boiling is optionalFive minutes of slow boiling was insurance that every grain dissolved. Sugar dissolves fully in water held just below a simmer, and stopping there keeps the volume predictable — an uncovered boil can drive off enough water to leave the syrup thicker and more concentrated than intended.
- Stop crystals before they startStir only until the sugar is dissolved, then leave it alone, and wipe any grains from the side of the pan with a wet brush or a damp cloth. A single crystal clinging above the waterline will seed the whole bottle as it cools. A spoonful of corn syrup or a few drops of lemon juice makes it more forgiving.
- "Keep on ice"This means the icebox — the refrigerator. A 2:1 syrup is sugar-dense enough to resist spoilage and will hold a month or more chilled in a clean, sealed bottle. Discard it at the first sign of cloudiness or any wisp of mold on the surface.
- Bottle warm, not boilingPour into a clean glass bottle while the syrup is still hot but not at a rolling boil, and let it cool with the cap off before sealing, so condensation does not collect a layer of near-plain water on top.
- YieldAbout one cup of finished syrup — enough to sweeten roughly six to eight tall glasses of fruit-juice drink. The recipe scales up cleanly, and doubling it is sensible in hot weather.
Sugar dissolves poorly in cold liquid, which is the whole reason this entry exists: a spoonful of granulated sugar stirred into iced tea or a fruit shrub sits gritty at the bottom of the glass, while syrup blends instantly. Bar manuals of the late nineteenth century already treated "gum syrup" or "plain syrup" as a standing item to be kept bottled behind the counter, and household books carried the practice into the home kitchen as iced drinks moved from the saloon to the porch.