It’s that time of year. As I walk through my garden each morning, the signs are plain to read: Harvest season is upon on us.
If you’re lucky, you find yourself wondering what to do with an overabundant bounty. Each winter, I promise myself that I’ll do a better job of canning, freezing, and storing … and each year, I find myself busy and scrambling to keep up.
I recently found myself the proud owner of buckets full of chives—yes, actual buckets of chives. I’m a big fan of chives and find many uses for them, but you can only do so much with chives. I’ve dried them, used the flowers in salts, and cooked with them all summer. I've also made olive oil–chive ice cubes for future meals and even gifted bouquets of chives to friends. Still, there are buckets. What to do?
My guiding philosophy is that almost anything can go into a cocktail. So, when August rolls around, I roll up my sleeves and repurpose the garden’s harvest into ingredients. And that often means making a variety of multipurpose cocktail syrups.
When planning my garden, I’m intentional about what I want to grow, and about how much of it. Basil, for example—I can never have enough. Not only does it have tons of culinary uses, but basil is a fantastic cocktail ingredient that pairs well with just about every fruit, citrus, and berry.
Mint, of course, is a cocktail staple. Then I ensure I have enough of a range of culinary herbs that are also great for cocktails—sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary, lemongrass, cilantro, anise, and dill. I also like to grow tea-type herbs, such as yarrow, hyssop, echinacea, calendula, and marigold.
Let your own taste guide you, but rest assured that there is plenty of overlap between what flavors you like with your food and what you might like in a drink.
What Makes a Great Syrup?
Ultimately, a great syrup comes down to consistency and balance of flavors.
For most cocktails, many believe a thin syrup is the way to go because it should dissolve quickly in cold liquid, so it can incorporate seamlessly into more delicate cocktails. To achieve thinner or lighter syrups, adjust the sweetener-to-water ratio down from the standard 1:1. For example, try a half-cup of sugar to one cup of water. The syrup will be less sweet, which might be ideal for lighter-profile cocktails or if you’re working with other sweet ingredients.
When you’re working with bolder, more assertive flavors or heavier ingredients such as juices, cream, or cocktails with many components, a rich syrup might be the better choice. For example, you’ll often find rich syrups in tropical and tiki-style cocktails. For a rich syrup, try one cup of sugar to a half-cup of water.
Whether you’re going light or rich, the key is to ensure that your sweetener—whether honey or sugar—fully dissolves. You also want to ensure that if you’ve infused your syrup, the flavors are pronounced enough to detect them when they’re mixed with other components—but not so much that the infused flavors take over the entire cocktail.
This year, I experimented with adding chives to other herbal syrups and mixing chives with fruits. The flavors of chives go beyond onion; they have a fresh, crisp, and verdant flavor profile. As a lover of savory over sweet, I was happy to find that chives go very well with various citrus fruits and a variety of berries. Hooray! That bucket of chives has a renewed purpose.
Orange-and-Chive Honey Syrup
Try this syrup in a gin and tonic, gin sour, or a cosmo-esque cocktail.
½ cup fresh chives, chopped
1 cup fresh orange juice, strained
1 cup raw honey
Add chives to a saucepan over low heat. Warm the chives until you can smell them, then add the orange juice and continue to warm for 5 minutes. Strain the chives from the orange juice through a mesh strainer, then pour the juice back into the pan. Add the honey over medium heat and stir until the honey is fully dissolved. Allow the syrup to cool before using it in a cocktail. Store in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Chivey G&T
2 oz London Dry Gin
1 oz Orange-and-Chive Honey Syrup
Tonic water, chilled
1 orange slice
Add gin and syrup to a Collins glass and stir. Add the ice cubes and top with the tonic water. Garnish with the orange slice.
Cosmonot
1½ oz vodka
½ oz Orange-and-Chive Honey Syrup
½ oz lime juice
Unsweetened cranberry juice, chilled
Add vodka, syrup, lime juice, and a splash of cranberry juice to a cocktail shaker with cubed ice. Shake well and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass.
Chive-and-Blueberry Syrup
Are you a blueberry fan? I can't imagine a better berry. Luckily, my bucket of chives pairs beautifully with their sweet-and-tart fruitiness—especially once I add a touch of vanilla.
Add some aromatic bitters to the syrup, and you’ve got a cocktail ingredient that's versatile and will stand up to aged spirits. Add lemon instead of bitters, and you pull out some juicier, fruitier flavors that work beautifully with unaged spirits.
½ cup fresh chives, chopped
½ cup fresh blueberry juice
1½ cup water
1 cup raw cane sugar
1 tsp aromatic bitters or 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
Add the chives and blueberry juice to a pot over low heat. Allow the mixture to warm on low, stirring occasionally, until you can smell the chives. Add the water and continue to warm for 5 minutes. Strain the chives and any blueberry solids from the liquid through a mesh strainer, then return the liquid to the pot. Add the sugar and the bitters or lemon juice and stir over medium heat until fully dissolved. Optionally, add 1 tsp vanilla extract. Remove from the heat and allow the syrup to cool before using in a cocktail.
Lazy Sunday
2 oz bourbon
1 oz Chive-and-Blueberry Syrup
½ oz sweet vermouth
A few blueberries
Add all the ingredients except the blueberries to a mixing glass with cubed ice and stir well. Strain into a rocks glass over an ice sphere. Garnish with blueberries—or with chives, if you’re a brave heart.
Why Worry?
1½ oz vodka
1 oz Chive-and-Blueberry Syrup
½ oz fresh lemon juice
Ginger beer, chilled
Add vodka, syrup, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker with cubed ice. Shake well and strain into a rocks glass over fresh cubed ice. Top with chilled ginger beer.
Petal Power
Calendula and marigolds are some of the best flowers to include in cocktails and teas. While people often confuse them because of their similar appearance, and they both belong to the Asteraceae family, they are not the same plant.
Both flowers have an earthy flavor with a hint of sweetness, but calendula tends to have a more bitter profile, while marigolds have a spicier one. You can plant loads of both flowers in your garden as borders or between your plants. They start early, grow quickly, and continue to thrive until the first frost—so, you can access to their beautiful, bright yellow and orange flowers for most of the year.
The dried petals are excellent for tea while fresh ones are delicious in salads, and they make for excellent botanical syrups and liqueurs. (See “Use Your Booze, Please the Crowd: Delicious Homemade Liqueurs” for instructions and inspiration on homemade liqueurs.)
The base flavors of these flower petals are subtle, so syrups made with them go well with lighter spirit bases. To use with aged spirits, you can make teas with the petals to generate more assertive flavors.
For cocktails, I use both flowers in teas as well as tea syrups. Here’s a tea recipe followed by two tried-and-true recipes for tea syrups.
Calendula-Marigold Tea
Note: When making tea for tea syrups, make the tea stronger than you might normally drink to help ensure the flavor of the infused syrup comes through in the cocktail.
1 cup hot water
1 tsp calendula petals, dried
1 tsp marigold petals, dried
½ tsp loose-leaf black tea
Steep the petals and tea leaves in the hot water for 3 minutes using a brew basket or tea strainer.
Flower Tea Syrup
The earthy flavors of these flower petals go best with honey, but you can also use raw cane sugar instead.
1 cup Calendula-Marigold Tea, still hot
½ cup raw honey
Combine the tea and honey and stir well until the honey is fully dissolved. Allow the syrup to cool before using it in a cocktail. Store in the refrigerator for 2–3 weeks.
Flower-and-Citrus Syrup
Adding a citrus component to this tea syrup brings more complexity, making it a great one for spirits with bolder profiles.
½ cup Calendula-Marigold Tea, still hot
¼ cup fresh orange juice
½ cup raw honey
Combine all the ingredients and stir well until the honey is fully dissolved. Allow the syrup to cool before using it in a cocktail. Store in the refrigerator for 2–3 weeks.
Tea Time
2 oz dry gin
1 oz Flower Tea Syrup
3 oz Calendula-Marigold Tea, chilled
Marigold petals
Add all the ingredients except the marigold petals to a mixing glass with ice and stir well. Strain into a tall glass over cubed ice and garnish with the flower petals.
Blood & Flowers
1½ oz aged rum
1 oz Flower-and-Citrus Syrup
1 oz blood-orange juice
2 shakes orange bitters
1 orange peel
Add all the ingredients except the orange peel to a cocktail shaker with a handful of cubed ice and shake well. Strain into a rocks glass over a large cube. Garnish with the orange peel.
The Kitchen Sink
Be brave when mixing unlikely flavors. If you find yourself overrun with herbs or garden goodies, don’t be afraid to throw them all together and test out different flavor combinations.
At the end of summer, I often find myself with what seems like strange combinations of herbs and garden goodies—but they can turn out to be winning combinations, like this kitchen-sink cocktail did.
Kitchen-Sink Tea
My tea included mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, yarrow, marigold, and oregano, but your own bounty may differ. Another thing that’s great about making teas is that the herbs don't have to look great—they can even be on their way out. First allow the herbs to dry, then chop them enough to fit into a brewing basket or tea strainer.
¼ cup various garden herbs, dried
3 cups hot water
Add the herbs to the hot water and steep for 4 minutes. Strain the tea through a mesh strainer to remove the herbs.
Kitchen-Sink Syrup
This syrup is delicious with a bit of spice added.
2 cups Kitchen-Sink Tea, still hot
1 cup raw cane sugar
1 tsp jalapeño juice
Add the sugar to the hot tea and stir until fully dissolved, then add the jalapeño juice. Allow the syrup to cool before using it in a cocktail.
Kitchen-Sink Cocktail
2 oz of your favorite spirit
1 oz dry vermouth
1 oz Kitchen-Sink Syrup
½ oz Kitchen-Sink Tea, chilled
½ oz lemon juice
1 sprig fresh herbs or 1 lemon peel
Add all the ingredients except the sprig of herbs or lemon peel to a cocktail shaker with a handful of cubed ice. Shake well and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass that can hold 6 ounces. Garnish with the herb sprig or lemon peel.
Grow, Pick, and Try New Things
Building on these experiments with chives, other herbs, and flowers, you can discover countless ways to elevate cocktails using your own vibrant garden herbs.
Each syrup you create not only preserves the abundance of your harvest, but it also adds a unique twist to classic drinks. As the season unfolds, you can look forward to crafting more delightful concoctions, sharing them with friends, and inspiring fellow gardeners to think beyond the typical uses for their herbs.
So, the next time you find yourself with a bountiful harvest, don't hesitate to delve into the world of cocktail syrups. Your garden’s gifts can transform your drink experience in ways you never imagined.