Cocktails with Brown sugar syrup
Brown sugar syrup is a sweetener made by dissolving demerara sugar in water, usually at a rich 2:1 ratio for extra body.
Substitutes for Brown sugar syrup
Demerara syrup is drier and less sticky and turns up behind more bars. The proportion matters more than the sugar, so check which one the recipe was written for.
Often confused with
Demerara syrup
Made from coarse unrefined sugar carrying its own molasses rather than molasses added back. Drier and less sticky, and more common behind the bar — it darkens a drink slightly and reads less sweet at the same measure.
Rich versus one-to-one syrup
Proportion is the whole difference, and it makes them non-interchangeable by volume. A 1:1 syrup is about half sugar by weight and a 2:1 about two-thirds, which after density works out at roughly 1.4 times the sugar per milliliter — not twice. Pour about three-quarters as much; poured one for one, the drink lands half again sweeter than it should.
Storage
Refrigerated, sealed, a couple of weeks. A richer syrup keeps longer because there is less water in it, and any syrup that has clouded or thrown threads has gone.
