Homemade Orgeat Syrup

Name: Homemade Orgeat Syrup
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 1.6 liters
Ingredients: 1 1/10 pounds blanched or toasted blanched almonds; 1 1/2 pounds sugar (1/2 demerara, 1/2 white); 1 tablespoon orange-flower water; 2 teaspoons almond extract

By Toby Cecchini

Total Time: 5 minutes
Rating: 4(107)
Comments: Read comments

Mai tai recipes call for a seldom-employed artificial almond syrup called orgeat, or orzata, depending on whether you’re buying the faux-French version or the faux-Italian one. The problem is that faux-ness. Though orgeat is conceptually tethered to tiki, its twisted history predates tiki’s by a long stretch. Orge is the French for “barley,” and orgeat, orzata or, in Spanish, horchata, originally referred to a common method of making barley water, a nourishing drink, by crushing the grain in a mortar and pestle and adding water to it to emulsify the fats. Along the line, almonds were added to the mix, and eventually the humble grain got shoved out in favor of the rich and aromatic nut.

Featured in: Case Study | Will the Real Mai Tai Please Stand Up?

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Ingredients

Yield:1.6 liters

1 1/10pounds blanched or toasted blanched almonds
1½pounds sugar (½ demerara, ½ white)
1tablespoon orange-flower water
2teaspoons almond extract

Ingredient Substitution Guide

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Preparation

Step 1
Combine almonds with 11 ounces of water in a blender and blend briefly until uniformly but roughly chopped. Pour into a nonreactive bowl and add one liter of boiling water. Stir well and let stand for three hours. Line a sieve or chinois with overlapping layers of fine cheesecloth, arranging them in an X pattern and leaving a fair amount trailing over to grab hold of. Pour in the mixture and allow it to filter through, assisting with a wooden spoon if necessary. Fold up the ends of the cheesecloth carefully to trap the pulp in a bag and squeeze out the remaining liquid. (This is important, as the pulp retains a fair amount of emulsion.) Discard cheesecloth and pulp. Place emulsion mixture in a pan, add sugar and heat mildly through (140 degrees or less), stirring until sugar is fully dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Add orange-flower water and almond extract and funnel into a clean, capped bottle to refrigerate. Optionally you may add 2 or 3 ounces of vodka to the syrup, as a preservative.

Tip

The syrup will separate after a short while. Simply shake it up again before using.

Ratings

4 out of 5

107 user ratings

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Comments

Drink Guinness7 years ago

You need to read the whole recipe, not just the ingredient list. 11oz and then 1 liter of water are also added

Matt K5 years ago

The spacing on the first ingredient is a little confusing. Do they want 1.1 lbs of almonds or one 1/10 (0.1 lbs) of almonds?

Marta4 years ago

This makes quite a lot of orgeat. Like for having Mai Tais every day for a year.

Use pulp for dump cake8 months ago

Instead of discarding the pulp, use it to top a dump cake. Completely elevates the humble cake. Major party hit too

bran1 year ago

This has to be one of the most infuriatingly written recipes I’ve ever seen. It needs to be broken up into steps. And all the measurements need to be the same unit so we can more easily adjust and half the recipe.

NHcook1 year ago

Sublime and well worth the effort. I replaced organic cane sugar for the hard for me to find Demerara sugar. Mixed some with plain seltzer for an interesting Italian soda. Added a lot of depth to cocktails. Will definitely be making this again.

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