Scores of cocktail drinkers got their first taste of orgeat in a mai tai. Orgeat is an almond-flavored syrup predating the dawn of mixed drinks—the cognac-based, orgeat-sweetened Japanese cocktail notably appears in Jerry Thomas’s historic 1862 bartender’s guide—but it’s been largely through tiki drinks like the mai tai, scorpion, and fog cutter that orgeat has acquired wider recognition. It lends a toasted, nutty, mildly floral dimension along with richness and body thanks to its sugar content.
Recipes for homemade orgeat often involve grinding blanched almonds in a food processor, infusing them into water or simple syrup in order to extract their flavor, then filtering out the solids through layers of cheesecloth over hours. The process has led countless bartenders to throw up their hands and just reach instead for commercially produced versions.
But there’s a shortcut that doesn’t involve pulverizing one’s nuts. All that toil mirrors the process of making almond milk. So why not just start there? This quick and easy orgeat recipe uses store-bought almond milk as the base, and a combination of white and brown sugar to help achieve a caramelized sweetness without going overboard with the sugar content. The addition of orange curaçao here helps with shelf-stability while enhancing the complementary orange flavors coming from the traditional inclusion of orange flower water.
Try your quick orgeat in an Army & Navy cocktail →