Rich simple syrup is simple syrup with a higher proportion of sugar, usually a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water. But is it twice as sweet?
Rich Simple Syrup – Photo © co*cktails & Bars
Making your own rich syrup is as easy as making simple syrup. Combine sugar and water over medium heat until the sugar fully dissolves, wait for it cool then use.
Rich simple syrup adds more viscosity to co*cktails and has a few advantages over its 1:1 counterpart. First, less of it per drink is required to obtain the same level of sweetening. Second, with sugar being a preservative, it lasts a little longer in the refrigerator before it eventually turns mouldy.
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Converting Rich Syrup and Simple Syrup
Simple syrup is more common in co*cktail recipes but how do you convert between rich syrup and simple syrup. In his book, Liquid Intelligence, Dave Arnold states,
Perhaps counterintuitively, rich simple is not twice as sweet as regular simple. Every fluid ounce of rich simple provides the same sweetening power as 1.5 ounces of regular simple.
Arnold discourages the practice of measuring sugar by volume, in favour of weighing, as granulated sugar and water do not have the same density. He recommends weighing both sugar and water when making syrup as they have different densities, whereas measuring sugar by volume can alter the ratio.
If you tap on your measuring cup repeatedly to compact the sugar, you can achieve a density very close to that of the water, but few people go through that process, and it is more difficult than weighing.
Is 1 part of rich syrup equivalent to 1.5 parts of simple, or is it 1.33 parts depending on how you make it? An online discussion expands on that point coming to the conclusion that if you make your syrup by weight, rich simple is 1.33x as sweet as simple syrup, whereas if you make it by volume, as is more commonly the case, it’s 1.5x sweeter. You can read the specifics of the discussion here.
Rich Simple Syrup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
Method
In a small saucepan, combine sugar and water over medium heat and stir until sugar fully dissolves. Remove from the heat and leave to cool to room temperature. Pour into a clean swing top glass bottle and store in the fridge until use. It keeps approximately for 4-6 weeks.
Corinne Mossati
Corinne Mossati is a drinks writer, author of GROW YOUR OWN co*ckTAIL GARDEN, and founder/editor of co*cktails & Bars, The Gourmantic Garden and Gourmantic. She has been writing extensively about spirits, co*cktails, bars and co*cktail gardening in more recent years. She is a spirits and co*cktail competition judge, Icons of Whisky Australia nominee, contributor to Diageo Bar Academy, co*cktail developer and is named in Australian Bartender Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential List. Her co*cktail garden was featured on ABC TV’s Gardening Australia and has won several awards. She is a contributor to Real World Gardener radio program and is featured in several publications including Pip Magazine, Organic Gardener, Australian Bartender and Breathe (UK). Read more or visit her website.
