Cocktails with Vanilla syrup
Vanilla syrup is a sugar syrup infused with vanilla pods or extract, used to sweeten drinks while adding a warm, aromatic edge.
How it's used
It sweetens and perfumes in one measure, which suits an espresso martini, a whisky sour or anything creamy. Use 5–15 ml, depending on whether the vanilla is a background or the point. Real vanilla syrup carries seeds that settle, so shake the bottle before pouring; a syrup made with vanillin stays clear and tastes one-dimensional against it. Aged rum, bourbon and coffee all take it; against chocolate it disappears rather than adding anything.
Substitutes for Vanilla syrup
Make your own: stir vanilla extract into 2:1 sugar syrup a few drops per 100 ml at a time, tasting as you go. Use it one for one. Plain sugar syrup works too, without the vanilla warmth. Vanilla extract on its own is not a swap: it flavors the drink but does not sweeten it.
Vanilla extract
Vanilla beans steeped in alcohol and used by the drop: concentrated, with next to no sugar at that amount.
Vanillin syrup
Flavored with vanillin rather than vanilla pods: cheaper, with a flatter, one-note flavor.
Storage
Sealed and commercial, months; homemade, a fortnight refrigerated. A used pod left in the bottle keeps giving flavor for a while and eventually just sits there. Cloudiness means it has started to go.
