Syrup

Syrups bring fruit, flowers, and herbs into your glass

Syrup is a thickened extract of fruit, flowers, or herbs that only becomes a drink once added to a glass. At nur Gutes, we feature six producers from France, South Tyrol, Franconia, the Münsterland, and Hamburg. The varieties range from floral and fruity to herbal, including organic syrups, vinegar-based shrubs, and concentrates for aperitifs.

Syrup is flavor in a thickened form, measured by the spoonful instead of by the glass. The producers in this category reduce fruit, flowers, or herbs until one bottle makes 20 drinks. What it becomes is up to you at the tap: a lemonade, an aperitif, a vanilla latte, or a salad dressing.

From the Arabic word for potion

The word "syrup" comes from Arabic medicine, where plant juices were thickened with sugar to preserve them through the winter.

The Arabic "sharab," meaning a drink, became the Latin "sirupus" in the Middle Ages and eventually our modern syrup. The same root traveled via the Turkish "scherbet" to Italy, where it became sorbet. The frozen dessert and the bottle in your fridge therefore share the same ancestors. Sweetness was not a luxury back then, but the means to preserve a harvest.

What has remained from this history is the principle: a concentrate lasts because it is concentrated, and it is concentrated so that it lasts. What was once a necessity has become a pantry staple that waits on the shelf for months, only to taste like fresh fruit again the moment you pour it.

From Paris to the Puster Valley

Behind the bottles in this category are six producers, all of whom have a different take on syrup and therefore each have their place.

The largest portion is provided by Bacanha from the Paris region, where they have been working under the name Sirop Brut since 2013. The producer offers over 45 varieties, 25 of which we carry. The range extends from organic yuzu syrup to rose, violet, and salted caramel for lattes—all in amber bottles with wooden stoppers that evoke apothecary jars.

From the Steigerwald forest come the shrubs by Schusters, fruit syrups made with apple cider vinegar that can season a lemonade just as well as a salad dressing. South Tyrol is represented by the fruit syrups from Alpe Pragas, gently boiled down in a vacuum at 70 degrees Celsius from apricots, raspberries, and blueberries.

Jardins from the Touraine region composes its concentrates from infusions, while pHenomenal Drinks in Hamburg reduces tonic and ginger for the home bar. And in the Münsterland, the Feinbrennerei Sasse distills rosemary, cardamom, and juniper into an alcohol-free bottle at a site where they have been distilling since 1707, with Rüdiger Sasse now leading the business in the 15th generation.

How to tell what’s in the bottle

Not all syrups are created equal, and the most important difference lies in the source of the flavor. It comes from the fruit itself, from an aroma, from an infusion, or from a still.

A fruit syrup like the one from Prags is made from reduced fruit, resulting in a dense, velvety, and tart profile. An aroma syrup, on the other hand, derives its fragrance from Grasse, the small town behind the Côte d'Azur where perfume has been created since the 16th century. This allows Bacanha to offer rose, violet, and yuzu, which would be impossible to juice. Five of the varieties also use real fruit juice, including lime, ginger, and strawberry.

The shrub takes a third path, in which fruits are infused in apple cider vinegar for 4 to 6 weeks before the extract is seasoned with sugar, using acidity to keep the sweetness in check. In the aperitif concentrates, the juniper in the Junipaero comes from the distillate, offering a juniper-heavy, spicy, and citrusy finish. The vermouth, by contrast, comes from a one-week herbal infusion, as bitter compounds do not survive the distillation process.

Hanna in Franconia, Stefan in the Dolomites

If you look into the people behind the labels, you will find four very different beginnings and a shared stubbornness when it comes to the recipes.

Hanna Schuster first tried a shrub in 2012 during a semester abroad in Pennsylvania and was hooked. "So much flavor, and from just 3 ingredients," says Hanna, a trained food technologist, about what convinced her back then. Today, the family bottles their products in an open-view facility in Untersteinbach, and her mother Gabi invented the mulled wine syrup. When it comes to their favorite variety, the children agree: Raspberry is at the top.

Stefan Gruber returned to Prags from Australia in 1994 and planted berries at an altitude of about 1,250 meters. He cooked his first jars in a garage in Toblach in 1997.

In Hamburg, Hendrik Schaulin was annoyed at the end of 2012 that good gin was being drowned in overly sweet industrial tonic, so he ordered cinchona bark and boiled up his own. "In both my professions, I am driven by the search for refinement," says Hendrik, who was previously a fashion designer. And Jardins was created in 2022 from an observation many will recognize. "During a Dry January, I noticed that the alternatives were usually too sweet or too dull," says Alix Besnier about how it began.

That these four beginnings have amounted to something is now confirmed by juries. Hendrik's ginger syrup won the DLG Gold Prize in 2021, and his tonic won silver in the same year. Both times, a trained panel judged the contents of the bottle rather than the label. In France, the Prix Épicures awarded silver to the tart Suspendus by Jardins, followed by bronze for the floral Fleuris. For two houses of this size, that is quite a statement.

A spoon in the glass, the rest is water

The dosage is similar for all of them and yet it remains a matter of taste: about one part syrup to 5 to 6 parts liquid, then adjust to your liking.

Cold mineral water turns them into homemade lemonade, tonic makes a long drink, dry sparkling wine creates an aperitif, and hot water turns the mountain mint into an infusion for cool evenings. The elderflower syrup becomes a Hugo when mixed with Prosecco, while the ginger syrup powers a Moscow Mule or a Dark and Stormy. The Suspendus with bitter orange and rosemary comes closest to a classic spritz, without any alcohol in the glass.

The kitchen is the second home for these bottles. A spoonful of shrub with good olive oil makes a dressing; a dash of fruit syrup over vanilla ice cream makes a quick dessert. Vanilla or hazelnut transform a latte into something you would usually go to a café for. All of them should be stored in a cool, dark place; a hot-filled shrub will last about 3 years unopened, while the aperitif concentrates should be used up within 2 months of opening.

One bottle instead of twenty in a crate

A pantry of concentrates also saves space, because what sits on the shelf as a thickened concentrate doesn't need to be shipped across the country as a finished drink.

400 milliliters make about 20 soft drinks, 250 milliliters make about 12 long drinks, and a slim bottle thus replaces half a crate. This is the most relaxed solution for mixed crowds because both drinks—with water or with sparkling wine—can be made from the same bottle. If you would like to keep looking for alcohol-free options, you will find a whole shelf of alcohol-free beverages in our selection.

A bottle like this is a great gift anyway, because nobody has them at home yet and everyone uses them up. Bacanha presents its varieties in gift sets, and Jardins offers small 200-milliliter bottles for trying them out. And for those who want to give even more, you will find what you are looking for in our gifts section. Browse through the varieties and choose the one that will last you through the summer.