Fresh Pandan Syrup
A vibrant green pandan syrup made with fresh Southeast Asian pandan leaves — the vanilla of the East, anchoring tropical cocktails, mai tais, and modern craft applications.
Pandan syrup brings one of Southeast Asia's most distinctive flavors to the cocktail bar — a complex, vanilla-adjacent character with grassy, nutty, and faintly coconut-like undertones that craft bartenders increasingly use to add tropical depth without obvious tropical sweetness. Fresh pandan leaves (Pandanus amaryllifolius), often called screw pine and sometimes nicknamed the vanilla of the East, infuse a vivid jade-green syrup that turns Old Fashioneds, daiquiris, gimlets, and tropical drinks into something distinctively Southeast Asian. Used at PS40 in Sydney, Crown Shy in New York, and craft bars worldwide, pandan syrup is the secret ingredient in the modern aperitiki movement.
- 6pandan leaves(fresh or frozen; about 70-100 grams; tied in knots and torn into pieces)
- 1 cupgranulated sugar
- 1 cupwater(filtered)
- 1Wash the pandan leaves thoroughly under cold water to remove any dirt, then pat dry with a clean towel.
- 2Tie each leaf into a loose knot and tear into rough three-inch pieces — this exposes more cell structure for flavor extraction during steeping.
- 3Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar fully dissolves into a clear simple syrup.
- 4Bring the simple syrup to a gentle simmer for two minutes, then add the prepared pandan leaves, stirring to submerge them in the hot liquid.
- 5Reduce the heat to low and simmer the mixture gently for ten minutes — boiling extracts harsh compounds, so keep the temperature controlled.
- 6Remove the saucepan from heat, cover, and let the pandan steep off the heat for at least six hours or preferably overnight for maximum flavor and color extraction.
- 7Strain the cooled syrup through a fine mesh sieve into a clean glass bottle, pressing gently on the pandan leaves to extract the last of the flavor and color.
Store in a sealed glass container in the refrigerator for up to three weeks. The vibrant green color may fade slightly over time as the chlorophyll degrades, but the flavor remains intact. Discard if any cloudiness, mold, or fermentation bubbles develop. For longer storage of up to three months, freeze in small portions or ice cube trays — frozen pandan syrup retains nearly full flavor and color when thawed and is the best option for storage given the difficulty of sourcing fresh leaves outside Asian markets. Keep refrigerated.
Use fresh or frozen pandan leaves rather than dried because fresh leaves contain the volatile aromatic compounds that produce the signature vanilla-grassy character; dried pandan loses much of this flavor. Frozen pandan is widely available at Asian grocery stores in the freezer section and works equally well as fresh. Tie the leaves into knots before steeping because this exposes more cell structure for flavor extraction without making the leaves harder to remove later. Do not boil the syrup with the pandan because high heat extracts bitter chlorophyll compounds; gentle simmer plus a long cool steep produces the best results. The overnight steep is genuinely necessary for full flavor and color development; six hours is the minimum, but twelve hours produces noticeably better results. Pandan extract or pandan paste can be added to amplify color in a pinch, though purists prefer the all-natural fresh-leaf version. For cocktails, use this syrup as a one-to-one substitute for simple syrup in tropical drinks, or as a quarter to half-ounce accent in spirit-forward cocktails like Old Fashioneds and Negronis.
Pandan (Pandanus amaryllifolius) is native to the Moluccas archipelago in eastern Indonesia, historically known as the Spice Islands, and has been a cornerstone of Southeast Asian cuisine for centuries — used in rice dishes, desserts, beverages, and traditional cakes across Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The Western craft cocktail world began discovering pandan around 2015 through pioneering bars including PS40 in Sydney, where bar director Michael Chiem introduced pandan-infused cocktails to a Western audience, and Mace in New York City, where Nico de Soto incorporated pandan into modern tiki and tropical applications. Alex Law of Bar Podmore in Honolulu, Vay Su of Double Dragon Bar in Los Angeles, and Napier Bulanan have helped spread the technique through pandan Old Fashioneds, daiquiris, and Negroni variations. The PUNCH magazine 2023 feature on pandan syrup brought wider mainstream awareness to the ingredient.
For a richer pandan syrup with longer shelf life, use a two-to-one ratio of sugar to water for a concentrated version ideal in spirit-forward cocktails. A coconut pandan syrup made by substituting half the water with unsweetened coconut milk produces a tropical creamy version that doubles as a non-dairy creamer for tiki drinks. For a pandan-lemongrass syrup capturing two foundational Southeast Asian flavors, add two stalks of bruised fresh lemongrass during the simmer for a more complex aromatic profile. A pandan-ginger syrup made by adding a two-inch piece of fresh ginger sliced thin during the simmer produces an excellent foundation for craft Asian Moscow Mules. For a sous vide version popular in modern bar programs, vacuum-seal the ingredients and cook at 145 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours for maximum flavor extraction with minimal degradation. A pandan-vanilla syrup made with a half-vanilla bean during the steep amplifies the natural vanilla character and creates an extraordinary cocktail sweetener.
No common top-eight allergens. Pandan allergies are extremely rare but possible. Naturally vegan and gluten-free. Pandan has been used safely in Southeast Asian food and drink for centuries; cocktail-sized servings present no concerns.