orgeat | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

(pronounced or-zhat) is a sweet, usually nonalcoholic almond syrup flavored with orange flower water. Its taste is often compared to marzipan. It is strongly linked with the world of tiki drinks and is an essential ingredient in one of the world’s great cocktails, the Mai Tai. The syrup’s history goes back centuries and has roots in many different cultures. The name derives from orge, the French word for barley, and early recipes indeed called for barley malt. Its use in cocktails dates back at least to the mid-nineteenth century, beginning with Jerry Thomas’s 1862 brandy-based Japanese Cocktail. Innocuous potions like orgeat lemonade were also popular temperance drinks during the 1800s. More recently, artificially flavored products from major producers (made using formulae often absent of actual almonds) came to dominate the market until the twenty-first century, when some bartenders and small-scale producers began making orgeat from scratch, utilizing almonds and other natural ingredients. Some, like Small Hand Foods of California, have substituted apricot pits for the traditional, but potentially toxic, bitter almonds.