Earl Grey Tea Syrup

Store in a sealed glass bottle in the refrigerator for up to one month. Keep refrigerated.

Steep at just below boiling — 90 to 95°C — for no more than three minutes; over-steeping black tea extracts bitter tannins that overwhelm the bergamot character. Loose-leaf Earl Grey produces a substantially better syrup than tea bags, which typically contain lower-grade fannings with less aromatic oil. For a more pronounced bergamot character, add two drops of pure food-grade bergamot essential oil to the finished, cooled syrup — this is the technique used by craft bartenders to boost citrus character without additional steeping. Quality varies enormously between Earl Grey brands; use a tea you would enjoy drinking on its own.

Earl Grey tea is named after Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey, who served as British Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834. The tea is a blend of black tea — typically Chinese or Ceylon — scented with oil extracted from the rind of the bergamot orange (Citrus bergamia), a fragrant citrus fruit grown primarily in Calabria, Italy. The origin of the blend is disputed: one tradition holds that a Chinese mandarin presented the recipe as a diplomatic gift to Grey; another suggests it was blended to suit the mineral-heavy water at Howick Hall, Grey's family estate. Earl Grey has been continuously produced and commercially available since at least the 1830s and remains one of the best-known specialty teas in the world. In cocktail culture, it gained prominence through Audrey Saunders's Earl Grey Mar-TEA-ni at the Pegu Club in New York, which used Earl Grey-infused gin as its base and became one of the most influential modern cocktails of the early 2000s.

A London Fog syrup can be made by adding one teaspoon of vanilla extract to the finished Earl Grey syrup — this combination (Earl Grey plus vanilla) is the flavor base of the popular Vancouver-originated London Fog latte that inspired many cocktail applications. A lavender Earl Grey syrup, made by adding one teaspoon of dried culinary lavender to the tea during the final minute of steeping, creates a multi-floral complexity excellent in gin cocktails. For a smoked Earl Grey syrup, briefly cold-smoke the loose tea leaves before steeping by exposing them to smoke from a torch for thirty seconds.

No common top-eight allergens. Naturally vegan and gluten-free. Contains caffeine. Bergamot oil is a citrus derivative; those with citrus allergies should use with caution.