orchard syrup
From The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails
is made by reducing fruit juice—chiefly a mix of apple and pear—to a syrup over heat, sometimes with the addition of cane or beet sugar. Apparently derived from the traditional German Obstsirup or Früchtsirup, it was a favorite of the great nineteenth-century German American bartender Harry Johnson, who used it in punches, cobblers, and crustas. See punch; cobbler;, crusta. It appears with some regularity in bartender’s guides until the mid-twentieth century, almost always in Johnson’s Orchard Punch or in a handful of other drinks lifted from one of his books.
Johnson, Harry. New and Improved Bartender’s Manual. New York: Harry Johnson, 1882.
“Wedding Bells California Orchard Syrup” (advertisement). Golden Gate Monthly, July, 1902, p. 150.
By: David Wondrich
This definition is from The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich (Editor-in-Chief) and Noah Rothbaum (Associate Editor).