For Christmas (I think it was two years ago?), my aunt gifted me a jar of orange-infused sugar from UC Riverside. This was a super cool and interesting gift, but it took me a while to figure out how to use it. Until I remembered my favorite cocktail–the Old Fashioned. So I used it to make orange simple syrup.
Ingredients
Recipe
- Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan on the stove and bring to a boil.
- Lower heat to bring to a simmer and simmer until the sugar is totally dissolved into the water.
- Let cool and strain the mixture into a container (I used an empty spice jar because reduce, reuse, recycle).
- Use instead of regular simple syrup in your cocktails!
This is also the recipe you use to make regular simple syrup, except you won’t have to strain that mixture. The orange simply syrup needs to be strained because the infused sugar has pieces of orange peel inside that help give it the great citrusy flavor and smell, but that don’t dissolve along with the sugar.
I still have the orange simple syrup I made from the first batch (and still have sugar leftover), so expect this to be in heavy rotation this summer!
As an aside–the olive oil and balsamic vinegar sold by the shop that makes the orange-infused sugar is heavenly so you should definitely snatch some up.
tbh I didn't realize Old Fashioned's were your favorite cocktail, but that totally tracks. Having orange simple syrup is a great way to easily add more orange flavor to it, so smart!