Level up your summer beverages with flavor infused simple syrups. Whether you are serving cocktails or simply iced tea, that quintessential summer beverage, flavored syrups are a terrific addition and super easy to keep on hand!

Iced Tea - sweetened or unsweetened? The debate rages on…mostly between the northern and southern states. Down south they don’t even ask…it is just assumed that iced tea means sweetened. Here in the north we mostly assume unsweetened (and the server always points that out) and you can add sugar to your liking.

There is some benefit to that mentality as it allows for just lightly sweetened or REALLY sweet depending on your preferences, but sugar in a cold beverage doesn’t dissolve that easily - especially with a bunch of ice cubes making vigorous stirring a challenge..and possible a sloshy mess. So, much of the time, it ends up in a slurry in the bottom of the glass - a waste of perfectly good sugar :)

I am a product of both the south (where I was born) and the north (where I have lived the majority of my life), and while I’ve grown accustomed to unsweetened iced tea, I do prefer the lightly sweetened compromise. But having an easy and effective way to accomplish that is the key!

Recently, we’ve been making simple syrups to keep on hand to stir into iced beverages that might need some sweetening (they work in hot beverages too, of course!). And it has been fun and SOOOO SIMPLE (haha).

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The diva tends to buy things in bulk (remember the 25 pound pandemic black beans purchase?? And the 7 pound puffed rice purchase?!). Anyway, her latest bulk purchases have involved vast quantities of dried rosemary and dried lavender…and I believe there is a vat of dried mint leaves somewhere in there too…

I’m not sure if this was the intended end use for them, but we used the largess of the abundant dried herbs to try making flavor-infused syrups. It was a natural experiment that turned out to be a winning idea!

Here is all you need to know…

Simple Syrup Ingredients

2 cups Sugar
2 cups Water
1/4 cup dried or 1/2 cup fresh herbs (or other flavor)

The amounts are totally flexible here as long as you stick to equal parts sugar and water.

Simple Syrup Directions

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, add a flavor…we’ve used dried lavender, dried or fresh rosemary, or fresh mint and some combinations of those so far with great success.
Bring to a boil stirring until sugar dissolves.
Simmer anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to infuse with the herb flavor.
Pour through a strainer into storage bottles to keep in the fridge!

You can also make citrus flavored simple syrup by substituting the water with fresh squeezed citrus juice - use lemon or lime or even orange or grapefruit! You can grate a bit of rind in as well to add more of a flavor boost, but be sure to strain it out before storing or it will turn bitter.

We store our syrups in these labeled plastic squeeze bottles to easily dispense whatever amount you choose into your drink. These syrups are also great brushed on cake layers or a Swiss roll before frosting…yummm.

Another added fun touch for summer beverages is pretty ice cubes with lemon or lime slices, or berries, or lavender or rosemary or mint sprigs frozen into the cubes. These don’t add nearly the impact of flavor that the syrups do, but they make for a very pretty presentation!