Home › Fruit Drinks and Cider › Almond Cup
Almond Cup
Bruise a handful of mint, sprinkle on a tablespoonful of sugar, and add a little water. Let stand until the sugar is dissolved. Put into a glass with some cracked ice and add two tablespoonfuls of orgeat syrup, or cream flavored with a few drops of almond extract. Mix well and fill up the glass with Apollinaris.
A temperance riff on the julep: mint, sugar, almond, ice and sparkling water. It builds in the glass and takes about two minutes.
- ApollinarisA naturally sparkling German mineral water, widely sold in the US in the early twentieth century and still available. Any dry, well-carbonated mineral water or plain seltzer does the same job; skip club soda if it tastes salty to you, as the mint and orgeat are delicate.
- OrgeatA sweet almond syrup, usually scented with orange flower water or rose water. Bar-quality bottled orgeat is easy to find now and gives a rounder result than the cream-and-extract substitute the recipe offers as a fallback.
- Almond extract, if you go that routeModern extract is potent. Three or four drops in two tablespoons of cream is plenty; more turns the drink into marzipan.
- A handful of mintRead it as ten to twelve good spearmint leaves. Bruise them against the sugar with a muddler or the back of a spoon until they smell green and release oil, and stop there — shredded mint goes bitter and floats in the glass.
- "A little water""A little water" -- A couple of teaspoons will dissolve a tablespoon of sugar, though as the recipe says, let it stand until it actually has. Superfine sugar dissolves faster; simple syrup works if you would rather not wait, allowing about two tablespoons of 1:1 syrup for the same sweetness.
- Cracked iceNot cubes. Crushed or cracked ice chills fast and dilutes as it goes, which is what keeps this from being cloying. Fill the glass generously.
- StrainingThe original leaves the bruised mint in. If you want a clear drink, strain the mint syrup into the glass over the ice and float a fresh sprig instead.
- YieldOne glass. The recipe does not say what size, but a tall 10 to 12 oz glass suits the proportions. Everything scales cleanly if you make a pitcher, but add the sparkling water only at the moment of serving.
This comes from the American vogue for elaborate non-alcoholic drinks, and it reads exactly like what it is: a mint julep with the whiskey lifted out and orgeat put in its place. The word "cup" here is the older British and American bar sense of a cold mixed drink served long, as in claret cup or cider cup, rather than a measure. Orgeat itself carries a longer history u2014 the name comes into French from Occitan/Proven u00e7al ordiat, from Latin hordeum, barley, with Italian orzata a cognate rather than the ancestor, and the almonds displaced the barley centuries ago while the name stayed put. Apollinaris, bottled at a spring in the German Ahr valley, was one of the most heavily advertised table waters of the era and turns up constantly in period drink books as shorthand for good sparkling water; recipes of this vintage name it the way a modern one might name a specific brand of tonic.