When making orgeat, you start with almonds and make almond milk.  So, why not start with almond milk! Plus, commercial almond milk is supposedly made from bitter almonds which contains benzaldehyde which is tasty.  They also yield cyanide, which is why you can’t buy them at the local store!

• 1 ½ cups unsweetened almond milk
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 oz. 100 proof vodka (optional but it will help preserve your orgeat)
• 2 Tbls. Orange Flower Water

1. In a small pot over medium-low heat, bring the almond milk and sugar to a near boil, stirring frequently.  As soon as the mixture begins to boil, it turns to foam.  Try to hold the temperature just below boiling until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a heat proof bowl or quart measuring cup.  (this will help remove any undissolved sugar).  Allow to cool to room temperature
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Store in a bottle in the refrigerator.  Keeps a month.
5. Shake well before using.

This is based on “Old Fashioned” Simple Syrup, an idea I got from Jamie Boudreau – famous mixologist.  The changes are the brown sugar and different bitters.  I prefer my house made bitters, of course, but Fee Brothers Aromatic Bitters works well.  Angostura will not work because it lacks the cinnamon flavor of the Fee Brothers.

• 1 cup Brown Sugar, or 3/4 cup Brown WheyLow
• 4 ozs. Good Bourbon
• 2 ozs. Fee Brothers Aromatic Bitters

1. Add all ingredients to a sauce pan over medium heat
2. Stir constantly until the sugar has dissolved
3. Allow to cool and transfer to a glass bottle.
4. This will keep refrigerated for a few weeks.
5. Shake well before using

Simple syrup is at the base of many cocktails.  It is simply equal parts sugar and water. It is best to use equal weights of sugar and water, but you can use volume.  To get the sugar into solution, you can heat the two together in a sauce pan on the stove, microwave them, or put both in a blender and whir it for a few minutes.   If you heat the syrup, you will need to let it cool.  With the blender method you won’t need to cool the syrup.  Either way, I suggest filtering it through a fine mesh strainer to remove any remaining crystals.  This prevents or at least delays the sugar coming out of solution.

While white sugar is the most common, you can use any sugar.  Changing the sugar can make big changes in your cocktails.

There is no substitute for the sweetness and the mouth feel of sugar.  If a drink calls for sugar, such as a Champagne Cocktail or classic Old Fashioned, nothing adequately replaces the sugar.  However, 1 ounce of simple syrup has 47 Kcal and 12 grams of carbs. Sweeteners such as Splenda and Equal, are sweet and that’s it.  WheyLow is fructose and milk proteins which are sweet, have a mouth feel similar to sugar and greatly reduced the carbs and Kcals.  However, WheyLow will not stay in solution unless you bring it to a rolling boil that you cannot stir down.  This means that you cannot use WheyLow as effectively in alcohol containing liquids.  You can do it, but the solution will need to be used within a few days.

So, if you want to have a real cocktail and you don’t have some dietary issue, use sugar.  Think of it as a cookie.  You will not get fat eating a cookie.  You have to eat a lot of cookies to get fat.  The same is true with cocktails.  Of course, drinking a lot of cocktails will bring other problems than fat.  So eat one cookie or have one cocktail and relax!

I’ll shut-up now.  Here’s the recipe:

• 1 part sugar or WheyLow see Note
• 1 part water

1. Boil or blend
2. Cool
3. Use

Your syrup will keep refrigerated for a couple of weeks.

Note: For Rich Simple Syrup use 2 parts sugar 1 part water.