Step Up Your Home Bartending Skills with These Syrups

You've got your shiny cocktail shaker, your swizzle stick, your muddler, your bottles of Peychaud's and Angostura. You've even stepped up your booze stash to nothing but single malts and tequilas over $40, yet somehow, your DIY cocktails still don't taste as amazing as the libations served at your favorite bar. What gives?

Homemade syrups, that's what.

It is what makes a $10 cocktail taste like a $17 one. And when used correctly, homemade syrups have the power to add a complex depth of flavor and satisfying viscosity to even the simplest of libations.

Let's start with the most versatile—lemon verbena syrup—to have in your repertoire, mostly because it goes with almost any spirit out there.

Then there's hyssop-infused honey might not technically a syrup per se, but it serves the same purpose. The strongly flavored herb which has been called "grown-up mint" is considered to be medicinal by some cultures and is used as an expectorant and stimulant but we're not using it for those properties. We are using it because it tastes awesome when used in place of a simple syrup in a whiskey sour or sazerac.

OK, we get it. You're busy and don't have time to infuse honey or boil water with sugar, you want something instant. Hell, you barely have time to pour yourself a shot after work. We still have something for you. The muddling process needed to make this lemon thyme-based cocktail almost achieves the same effect as a simple syrup or infused honey because you are literally smashing the herb into the honey with your brute strength.