Cocktails with Orgeat (almond) syrup
Orgeat is a sweet, non-alcoholic almond syrup flavoured with orange flower water and/or rose water and a pronounced almond note.
Taste profile
Dominant almond, sweet and nutty, lifted by a delicate floral top note from the orange-flower or rose water.
How it's used
Contributing sweetness, almond aroma and a syrupy medium body, it is shaken into the build and dosed as a flavouring sweetener; when it is the defining note of a drink it is effectively non-substitutable, but as a small sweet accent it can give way to a generic sweet syrup.
Substitutes for Orgeat (almond) syrup
A hazelnut syrup comes closest — it matches the sweetness and syrupy body and keeps a broadly nutty register, though it reads as a different nut and loses the floral orange-flower note; maple syrup can stand in for sweetness and body only, replacing the almond and floral character with its own.
Description
Orgeat combines almonds and sugar, with a small amount of orange flower water and/or rose water added as an aromatic. It was originally made from a barley-and-almond blend — the name traces back through French 'orge' (barley) to Latin 'hordeaceus' — but modern orgeat generally drops the barley. Commercial versions do not contain significant hydrocyanic acid and are considered safe despite deriving flavour from almonds.
