Basil Simple Syrup

Basil Simple syrup is a wonderful addition of flavor to sweeten your iced tea, basil lemonade, cocktails and desserts like watermelon popsicles and basil popsicles.  The fragrant basil adds a wonderful floral note to the simple syrup and makes a normally boring drink amazing! Make this basil syrup now and enjoy it for weeks to come.

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Total Time: 20 minutes minutes

About This Basil Simple Syrup

Making a basil simple syrup is very easy. It involves adding equal parts water and sugar in a sauce pan and heating it until the sugar dissolves.

This makes a beautiful homemade sweetener that you can enjoy anytime.

The only additional step when making basil simple syrup is adding the basil to the pot and letting it steep until it cools. Minimal effort for really big flavor.

The ingredients you will need

There are only three ingredients to make this simple syrup. Here is what you need:

• Water. Any type of water is fine as long as you would drink it plain 🙂
• Sugar. Granulated sugar is what you need. I prefer to use less processed sugar or unbleached granulated sugar. This will give a slight yellow hue to the syrup but it will not show through in your drinks.
• Fresh basil leaves. It is important that you use fresh basil for this recipe. Any variety of fresh basil will work well. Thai basil, Italian basil, purple basil, etc.

How to make basil simple syrup

• Warm sugar and water until the sugar dissolves.
• Remove from the heat and add your fresh basil leaves and place a lid over top.
• When cooled, remove basil leaves and pour your syrup into a container and use right away or refrigerate.

When making this basil simple syrup, you are going to essentially steep your basil in the warm just off of the stove syrup. The longer you let the basil steep, the more basil flavor you are going to have so do not rush it.

This recipe requires a little planning ahead but as I mentioned, it will last a long time. This is a great excuse to double the recipe and have lots of extra simple syrup on hand for a later uses.

I use lots of this syrup in my homemade fruit popsicles. The basil flavor goes so well with so many fruits.

How To Use Basil Syrup

In our house, we also love using homemade simple syrups for our cocktails and popsicles. Basil simple syrup added to a cocktail is just amazing! Here are some of our favorite recipes using this basil syrup:

• Italian Mocktail . We love adding a splash to this easy Italian Mocktail to really elevate the flavors.
• Aperol and Soda. This recipe calls for regular simple syrup but you better believe we use basil simple syrup when we have it.
• Grapefruit Lemon and Basil Popsicles
• Strawberry and Basil Popsicles
• Make a simple and refreshing Basil Lemonade.
• Cocktails (see some ideas below!)

It makes for less work in making cocktails too because you can just mix a little gin or vodka with this syrup and top it off with soda water and you have a really quick cocktail that tastes amazing.

I will often make a few batches of different simple syrups and store them all in the back of the fridge for anytime we need them. In addition to this basil simple syrup I love making cherry simple syrup , rhubarb simple syrup , strawberry simple syrup, pear simple syrup , honey simple syrup and lavender simple syrup.

They all make wonderful additions to drinks.

The fruit simple syrups can be made from frozen fruit so I do not have to worry about what is in season. Basil you can find all year round in the grocery store so it is also a great year round simple syrup.

How Long Will Basil Simple Syrup Last?

Simple syrups will last for a long time in your refrigerator. The little work that you go through in making it will not go to waste and you will thank yourself later on when you need it.

I can keep my basil simple syrup in the fridge for up to a month before I begin to see sugar crystals forming. The best rule of thumb is just check on it in your fridge and make sure it looks clear and fresh and you will be good to go.

More cocktails that go well with basil syrup

All of these cocktails listed below use a simple syrup in the recipe. You can just swap out the plain simple syrup in the recipe for basil simple syrup for an amazing and big on flavor cocktail.

• Aperol and soda
• Aperol Fizz
• Miami Vice
• Chartreuse and Gin cocktail
• Spiced Pear Cocktail

Remember, any recipe that calls for simple syrup you can swap out for flavored simple syrups to really elevate the drink!