Sugar Syrups: Hitting the sweet spot

Adventurous flavours are on the cards for sugar syrups in 2015, as Lucy Britner reports

All bets are off when it comes to sugar syrups. Last year saw the creation and roaring success of paper syrup. Yes, paper. It was the invention of Paris bar Little Red Door’s Remy Savage. 

For his entry into the Bombay Sapphire World’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition, Savage created a syrup inspired by Bombay’s new distillery, an old paper mill. 

Savage says of his creation: “I was inspired by the Commonwealth notes that were created at Laverstoke Mill all those years ago – I wanted to replicate the flavour of paper and celebrate the history of gin, and I believe my cocktail is a delicious celebration of this.”

His paper syrup contains sugar, water, vanilla, gentian root, grass, Laphroaig whisky and Suze liqueur, which is a gentian root aperitif. Cocktail aficionado and World’s 50 Best Bars contributor Camper English says: “I tried the drink and it was really quite close to paper.”

Across the channel James Coston, Monin UK brand ambassador, says: “Last year was one of epic serves in the cocktail industry and 2015 will see the UK carry on in the same vein, with bartenders seeking out new techniques, garnishes and glassware to help them master their perfect serve.

“As innovation trickles down, we’ll also see more mainstream venues looking to adapt and improve on previous flavour trends as part of their drinks menus.” 

Whether that means we’ll one day see paper syrup in a high street chain bar remains to be seen, but then who thought Picklebacks would be so popular?

Tomorrow’s world

Tea, tonka bean and rhubarb are all tipped for 2015 success, although trends differ widely from country to country.

Monin’s Coston says: “With regard to flavour, the most creative bartenders will venture into unfamiliar territory and look for unusual ingredients; for example, I think tonka bean will be a popular flavour for high-end bars next year.”

Funkin chief executive Andrew King says there are many places doing wonderful things with cocktails, but places like “London, New York and LA are pushing the boundaries further than most”. 

Funkin is now available in 20 countries around the world and King says one significant trend he has seen in the US that doesn’t seem to have made it across the channel is skinny cocktails, boosting the popularity of low-GI option agave syrup. “Skinny cocktails just haven’t taken the same menu share in the UK as they have in the US,” he says.

Tea, ginger and rhubarb are on the agenda at Funkin. “We are about to produce an Earl Grey tea syrup and we launched Rhubarb in December 2014,” King adds. 

Monin has also upped its offer when it comes to tea. Taking on the trend for tea-infused drinks, in 2014, Monin revised the formula for its range of tea flavours: a stronger black tea extract taste combined with a natural tart flavour and fruit aromas. The tea syrups range comes in three flavours: Peach, Raspberry and Lemon. 

Emerging trends

In the Giffard camp, 2014 saw Blueberry and a Bitter Concentrate added to its 70-strong portfolio. Giffard’s Sophie Godefroy says: “Elderflower is very trendy in the Hugo cocktail, in Germany, as well as in central and eastern Europe”. Meanwhile, gum is popular in the UK and “mostly appreciated in the best London bars”, while the coffee range (caramel, hazelnut and vanilla being the top three) is a “huge growing market in Asia and the Emirates as well as in the Baltics”.

Asia and the Middle East are bringing new business to Giffard and the company has recently launched in Iran, Kuwait, the Philippines and Azerbaijan. 

Godefroy is able to make a very clear distinction when it comes to flavour trends in different markets. “Classic flavours are sold in countries where the cocktail market is mature (including the UK and Germany) because they are used in classic cocktails. Think gum, grenadine, orgeat, passion fruit, strawberry…” In fact, passion fruit is one of Funkin’s largest flavour exports, according to King. 

Godefroy continues: “Flavours that go well with fizzy/lemonade drinks, such as elderflower, cucumber, passion fruit, watermelon, green mint, blue curaçao, are popular across Europe.

“Then there are also many countries where the cocktail market is ‘in the middle’, where we can see many flavoured gin and tonics or flavoured Mojitos – like in Spain and Belgium, for example. Further afield in Asia, all of the coffee flavours are very successful.” 

Ukraine’s Sergey Alekseyev, International Monin Cup winner 2014, says the leading flavours in Ukraine are Monin Orgeat, Elderflower and Passion Fruit. 

“In my bar we make lemonades with Monin Caramel, Green Apple and Honey, which are very popular. The choice of Monin syrups is very wide so bartenders in different regions of the country have their own favourites. For coffee drinks we love nut-flavoured syrups, as well as Monin Cinnamon, White Chocolate and Crème Brûlée.”

When it comes to setting the trends, Alekseyev says the influence of established bartenders on the next generation is very important. “Tastes change from customer to customer, but cocktail trends are largely the same, I think, because young bartenders like me all over the world look up to well-known trendsetters in the industry. 

“The real bartending art is to adapt something new and unknown to the people in your bar.”

He uses the example of ginger, which he says isn’t a typical ingredient in Ukraine, “but when we use it in a combination with rum, lemon and blackthorn jam, people love it”.

Behind bars

Invention and creativity drive the creation and distribution of numerous flavours of syrups and, as Savage has shown, you can make sugar syrup in many guises. 

Little Red Door owner Timothée Kiwee, who has opened new Paris bar Lulu White, says: “All of the team prefer to create their own syrups, because they, too, participate directly in the taste of the cocktail creations.”

At World’s Best Bar, Artesian, Alex Kratena, Simone Caporale and their team also make their own syrups, and the latest inventions have included “myrrh, vetiver [extract from a perennial grass] and cedarwood, all through the use of organic essential oils”, says assistant head bartender Caporale. 

But top bartenders do also recognise a time for a bought-in product. Trois Rivières sugar syrup is the preference at Artesian. You may recognise the name as that of the Martinique rhum producer – and the syrup comes from the same estate. 

Caporale says: “It comes from the first evaporation of the sugar cane process… It has a round flavour in between a neutral result of caster sugar-made syrup and a full-character Demerara syrup. It works well in a cocktail without dominating the taste.”

In San Francisco, Smuggler’s Cove’s Martin Cate also opts for a Martinique syrup – no coincidence that both champion rum behind the bar. “We use our own sugar syrup for most applications, except Ti’Punch where we use a Martinique cane syrup,” he says.

“The syrup from Martinique is from Petit Canne. The Trois Rivières brand is not in the US, but most of the branded cane syrups in Martinique come from two island-based syrup companies.” 

As far as making your own syrup goes, Cate says: “We do use heat, but only the minimum needed to achieve a fast dissolve – never letting it boil or linger.” 

Thanos Prunarus from Baba Au Rum in Athens also warns against over-heating. “We usually don’t heat our syrups, as heating changes the sugar composition. We always check them with a Brix meter and the only syrup we heat a bit is cinnamon syrup. It works great when using a vacuum to heat it in.”

Prunarus’s most recent invention includes Fassionola syrup, made together with Ben Reed (for Reed’s rum masterclasses in Greece). According to Prunarus, Fassionola is an old forgotten tiki era ingredient and he describes it as a “thick, very tasty syrup, with an orangey taste, passion fruit and cherry”.

“The batch we made was so tasty that more than 20 bartenders and bars all over Greece asked for the recipe!”

But Prunarus is not afraid to admit defeat when it comes to certain flavours. And this is where the big producers have room to grow in top bars. 

He says: “We make all of our syrups ourselves except orgeat. We did not manage to make a better orgeat syrup than the Monin one, which works great in classics like the Mai Tai, for example.”

For the syrup producers, the trick is finding the balance between making money from selling scale and appealing to bartenders who look more and more for provenance and artisanal ingredients. 

There is definitely something to be said for consistency. If you’re making your own, you don’t have the buying power to ensure ingredients are of a consistent quality. 

King describes Funkin as having a “significant sourcing operation”. In the same way that larger-volume gin brands get the pick of the juniper harvest, King is also able to source to a tight specification. “We have a particularly great source for our root ginger in Chile, for example. There is a trend around delicate flavours – like tea – and it’s hard to get that kind of consistency behind the bar.”

He says there is also a trend for “nostalgic, forgotten ingredients”, giving way to the launch of 100% natural rhubarb. “We have an NPD [new product development] cupboard full of ideas,” he teases. 

Paper, perhaps?