Home Bar Basics: How to Make Sweet & Sour Mix

I’m tackling Sweet & Sour mix for the next entry in the Home Bar Basic series. For those that don’t know, sweet & sour mix is a blend of lemon and lime juices + simple syrup. It’s used in many cocktails, most notably margaritas and whiskey sours.

Sour mix is readily available pre-mixed in many grocery and liquor stores. But why buy these concoctions, which are usually full of preservatives and artificial colors, when you can easily make your own batch at home? Not only does it taste 10 times betters, it’s healthier for you as well. Told ya, I’m all about the healthy cocktail. 😉

How to Make Sweet & Sour Mix

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup of fresh lime juice

Directions:

1. Combine water and sugar in a pot
2. Heat on stove, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves
   • You now have a basic simply syrup–the full process is outlined my 1st Home Bar Basics article  How to Make Simple Syrup
3. Remove from heat, add in the lemon and lime juice
4. Allow mixture to cool
5. Once cool, place in a clean receptacle and store in the fridge
   • Mixture should last about a week or so properly stored

And voila! You have your very own tasty, homemade batch of sweet & sour mix to use in your custom cocktail creations.

Uses for Sweet & Sour Mix

My favorite use for sweet & sour mix is in margaritas. I make a mean margarita on the rocks, if I do say so myself. A basic margarita recipe is:

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz Tequila (I prefer Hornitos Plata)
• 1 oz Triple Sec
• .5 oz Sweet & Sour mix

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice
2. Shake well
3. Pour into a glass with a salted rim (or not if you prefer) and enjoy

Once you taste it, you can adjust it accordingly. If you want it stronger, add more tequila; if you want it more citrus-y, increase the amount of sour mix by half an ounce or so. Once you get the cocktail suited to your taste, you can up your game by adding in muddled fruit–or– you can tweak the base of the mix by adding flavor to the simple syrup (step 2).  Lavender is one of my favorite additions to my sweet & sour mix.

If margaritas are simply not your thing, or you want to experiment a bit more, check out The Spruce, they have a list of 45 cocktails that require sweet & sour mix. I think I’m going to give the Habanero Blood Orange rita or the Ruby Rum Sunrise a try. Both sound perfect for an evening on the patio.

Other articles in the Home Bar Basics series:

1. How to Make Simple Syrup

Images: Pexels, Pixabay

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