Amaretto Sour
A sweet and sour liqueur cocktail ∙ Dry shake ∙ 5 min ∙ 10.8% ABV ∙
The Amaretto Sour is a shaken sour of amaretto almond liqueur, fresh lemon juice and egg white, served over ice under a white foam.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: Amaretto liqueur 60 mlLemon juice 30 mlAngostura aromatic bitters 1 dash (opt.)Egg white 15 ml
- Strain back into the shaker
- Dry shake (without ice)
- Fine strain into the ice-filled glass
- Garnish with a lemon slice and a maraschino cherry on a cocktail stick
Tips
- Squeeze the 30 ml of lemon fresh and skip bottled sour mix; sour mix is what gave this drink its old reputation for being cloying.
History
The Amaretto Sour is generally traced to the 1970s, when it emerged as a promotional push from the liqueur brand Disaronno, then sold as Amaretto di Saronno. The original was minimal: amaretto and lemon juice, the same sour template as the Whiskey Sour, with the liqueur itself serving as both base and sweetener. Through the 1980s and '90s, high-volume bars swapped the fresh lemon for prefabricated artificial sour mix, giving the drink a doubled-up sweetness and a lasting reputation as overly saccharine.
Modern bartenders rehabilitated it. In 2012, Portland, Oregon bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler published his own version with a small pour of high-proof bourbon; it has its own page here, the Amaretto Sour (Jeffrey Morgenthaler recipe).
FAQ
What is in an Amaretto Sour?
60 ml amaretto, 30 ml fresh lemon juice and 15 ml egg white, plus an optional dash of Angostura bitters. The amaretto is both the base and the sweetener, so there is no separate syrup.
How do bartenders make a good Amaretto Sour?
They squeeze the lemon fresh and skip bottled sour mix, which is what made this drink cloying. Shake everything with ice, strain back into the shaker and shake again without ice to foam the egg white. Fine-strain into an ice-filled old-fashioned glass and garnish with a lemon slice and a maraschino cherry.
Is an Amaretto Sour shaken or stirred?
Shaken, twice: first with ice to chill and dilute, then without ice to build the egg-white foam.
What glass is an Amaretto Sour served in?
An old-fashioned (rocks) glass, over fresh ice, with the egg-white foam on top.
Does an Amaretto Sour have bourbon in it?
Not in this recipe, which is amaretto, lemon and egg white. Some modern versions add a small pour of high-proof bourbon, as Jeffrey Morgenthaler did in his 2012 version.
