The Complete Guide to Bacanha Syrups

There is a much larger syrup culture in France than most Americans realize.

Walk through a French grocery store and bottles of fruit, herb and flower syrups are perfectly ordinary pantry goods. They are mixed into cold water, poured into lemonade, used in tea, served to children, added to cocktails and pulled out whenever plain sparkling water sounds a little boring.

The category has deep roots. Teisseire traces its history to Grenoble in 1720. Monin began in Bourges in 1912. Both eventually became enormous businesses, although in different ways. Teisseire remained closely tied to the French habit of diluting syrup with water. Monin became a fixture in cafés, hotels and bars around the world.

Bacanha came along in Paris in 2013.

Its bottles are smaller. The labels are quieter. The flavor list wanders from caramel into bergamot, elderflower, lychee and violet without much concern for whether those flavors belong in the same conventional retail category.

They do belong together once you start using them.

Bacanha calls the range Sirop Brut.

At The Ambrosian Pantry, we have settled on twelve flavors:

Bergamot, Caramel, Elderflower, Ginger, Hazelnut, Lychee, Passion Fruit, Peach, Pistachio, Rose, Strawberry and Violet.

This guide is about those twelve bottles.

Bacanha makes many more. We do not carry the entire catalog, nor is there much value in pretending otherwise. These are the flavors we have chosen to keep around, and after living with them for some time, they have developed fairly clear personalities.

Some belong next to the coffee machine.

Some belong near the gin.

Some need nothing more than ice and sparkling water.

A few are much more interesting than their names initially suggest.

What is Sirop Brut?

Bacanha uses Sirop Brut as the name for its house style of concentrated syrup.

The English translation occasionally appears as “raw syrup,” which is not especially helpful. Nobody should read the phrase and assume the bottle contains uncooked cane juice or some sort of raw-food preparation.

It is syrup.

Sugar and water form the base. Natural flavoring, fruit juice, extracts or other aromatic ingredients vary from bottle to bottle. Citric acid appears frequently as well.

The difference becomes more apparent in the glass.

The flavors tend to be assertive enough that a relatively small amount of syrup can carry a drink. Bergamot smells unmistakably of bergamot. Ginger has heat. Rose smells like rose. Violet does not need purple food coloring to tell you what it is.

Bacanha recommends around 20 to 30 mL for a drink, depending on the flavor and the amount of dilution.

We rarely treat that as a fixed rule.

Twenty milliliters works well in a tall glass of sparkling water. A latte may need considerably less. A cocktail that already contains sweet vermouth, fruit or liqueur might only need a teaspoon or two.

Pour less than you think.

Taste.

Add more if the drink needs it.

That approach will get you further than any recipe printed on the side of a bottle.

Bacanha versus Monin, Torani and Teisseire

These names often get lumped together because they all sell flavored syrup.

They occupy different corners of the category.

Teisseire is deeply embedded in the French tradition of syrup diluted with water. The company became so associated with the practice that its metal bottles were designed in part around the way cyclists carried and mixed drinks.

Monin grew into a professional flavor system. Walk behind enough coffee bars and hotel bars and you eventually find the familiar bottles and pumps. The assortment is enormous because the company serves businesses that need an enormous assortment.

Torani grew out of San Francisco's Italian-American café culture and became particularly important to the American flavored-coffee world. Its history is intertwined with the rise of drinks like the flavored latte.

Bacanha is much younger and narrower in spirit.

A 400 mL Bacanha bottle feels more like something intended to live in your kitchen than behind a commercial espresso counter. The flavor choices reinforce that. You can buy caramel, of course, but the same range quickly takes you to bergamot, elderflower, rose and violet.

That is roughly how we think about Bacanha in the store.

We are not looking for a cheaper way to put hazelnut syrup into 400 coffees a day. We want a good bottle of hazelnut syrup at home, and while we are standing there we might decide that a bottle of bergamot would be even more fun.

The twelve Bacanha flavors at a glance

Bacanha Bergamot Syrup

If Earl Grey is part of your life, bergamot already is too.

Bergamot is the citrus responsible for Earl Grey's unmistakable perfume. Its aroma lands somewhere among lemon peel, bitter orange and flowers, with a slightly bitter quality that keeps it from reading like ordinary citrus candy.

The Bacanha version is one of the bottles we return to most often.

Pour a little into sparkling water and you get a very grown-up citrus soda almost immediately. Grapefruit peel is good with it. Lemon works too, although you may find that the drink already has plenty of citrus character without adding anything else.

Black tea is an even better use.

Brew a plain black tea, chill it and sweeten each glass with Bergamot. You can make something barely scented or push it much closer to Earl Grey.

There is no reason to sweeten an entire pitcher in advance. One of the pleasures of using syrup this way is being able to adjust each glass separately.

Gin is the obvious spirit.

Juniper and bergamot seem to understand one another.

Bergamot highball

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz Bacanha Bergamot
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 3 to 4 oz sparkling water

Build it over ice and keep the syrup restrained enough that you can still taste the gin.

Bergamot is also a good bottle for people who usually say they do not like sweet drinks. Its peel-like bitterness gives it more shape than most straightforward fruit syrups.

Shop Bacanha Bergamot Syrup

Bacanha Caramel Syrup

Caramel is the least exotic word on this list.

It may also be one of the bottles you finish first.

There are days when nobody wants to conduct an experiment with violet and gin. They want a cappuccino with a little caramel in it.

Bacanha's version leans toward soft caramel candy rather than aggressively burnt sugar.

A teaspoon in espresso is enough to notice.

Milk gives it room to spread out, so cappuccinos and lattes can take a little more. Cold brew handles it well too.

If you make an Old Fashioned at home, try replacing the normal sugar with a bar spoon of Caramel. Bourbon makes the drink softer. Rye keeps more edge around it.

Then there is dessert.

Vanilla ice cream. Apples. Pears. Bread pudding. Chocolate cake. Whipped cream.

Caramel does not require much instruction.

Its great virtue is that you will actually use it.

Shop Bacanha Caramel Syrup

Bacanha Elderflower Syrup

Elderflower was once a fairly obscure flavor in American bars.

Then St-Germain happened.

For a while it seemed as though every cocktail menu contained elderflower liqueur somewhere.

The flower deserves a life beyond that particular era of cocktail culture.

Elderflower is floral, but it also carries fruitier impressions that can resemble pear, grape, citrus and honey. That makes it much easier to use than rose or violet.

Sparkling water, Elderflower and lemon is enough for a drink.

Cucumber is good if you have it.

Tonic gives the whole thing a slightly bitter edge.

Gin works almost automatically. So does sparkling wine, although use very little syrup there or you will erase the dryness of the wine.

Green tea is another good home for it. Brew the tea stronger than usual, chill it and sweeten it in the glass.

If the floral end of the Bacanha shelf interests you but Rose and Violet feel like a leap, Elderflower is the bridge.

Shop Bacanha Elderflower Syrup

Bacanha Ginger Syrup

A bottle of Ginger tends to migrate around the kitchen.

One day it is beside the cocktail shaker. The next it is going into black tea. Then someone pours it into sparkling water with lime and suddenly the bottle is half empty.

Bacanha makes this one with ginger juice and ginger extract, and the heat survives.

It does not taste like gingerbread.

It tastes like ginger.

A simple homemade ginger soda requires nothing more than syrup, very cold sparkling water, ice and lime.

Add bourbon and it becomes an easy highball.

Dark rum works beautifully.

So does tequila.

Vodka mostly gets out of the way.

Ginger mule

• 1 1/2 oz vodka, bourbon or blanco tequila
• 1/2 to 3/4 oz Bacanha Ginger
• 3/4 oz fresh lime juice
• Sparkling water

Pour everything over a full glass of ice. Leave out the spirit and the drink still works.

Tea may be even better. Ginger and black tea already have enough going on that sugar is all they really need.

The syrup can wander into food as well. Carrots, vinaigrettes, fruit salad, lemon cake and glazes all give you room to use it.

Of the twelve bottles here, Ginger may have the fewest dead ends.

Shop Bacanha Ginger Syrup

Bacanha Hazelnut Syrup

Hazelnut syrup acquired some unfortunate baggage during the great flavored-coffee boom.

Too many versions tasted vaguely sweet, vaguely nutty and mostly beige.

The flavor deserves better.

Roasted hazelnut has tremendous depth. Put it beside coffee or chocolate and very little explanation is required.

A cappuccino with a small amount of Hazelnut is hard to argue with.

Hot chocolate is even more obvious. The combination quickly recalls gianduja, the Italian marriage of chocolate and hazelnut, without requiring you to dissolve actual hazelnut paste into the cup.

Whipped cream likes it.

Milkshakes like it.

Vanilla ice cream likes it.

You can push the bottle toward bourbon or Cognac if you want, although we find ourselves returning to coffee and chocolate instead.

There is no prize for making every syrup work in a cocktail.

Hazelnut knows where it belongs.

Anyone with a nut allergy should check the bottle carefully. Bacanha identifies tree nuts as an allergen in its Hazelnut syrup.

Shop Bacanha Hazelnut Syrup

Bacanha Lychee Syrup

Lychee has one of those flavors that becomes harder to describe the longer you try.

“Tropical” is technically correct and tells you almost nothing.

The fruit is juicy and sweet, but the aroma is strikingly floral. Rose often comes to mind, which is why the two show up together so often in drinks and desserts.

Bacanha makes both.

If you own the pair, use much more Lychee than Rose.

Lychee and rose soda

• 1/2 oz Bacanha Lychee
• 1 teaspoon Bacanha Rose
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 4 oz sparkling water

Gin can join if the hour allows.

Lychee also works beautifully with jasmine tea and green tea.

Chill the tea before adding syrup. Floral flavors can become surprisingly loud in hot liquid.

Vodka is useful when you want the fruit to stay front and center. Gin adds another layer of aromatics.

Lychee occupies an interesting middle ground on the shelf. It feels exotic without being particularly difficult to use.

Shop Bacanha Lychee Syrup

Bacanha Passion Fruit Syrup

Passion fruit has acidity on its side.

That is why it works so well in drinks.

Mango can become heavy. Coconut can become rich. Passion fruit has enough natural sharpness to carry sugar without collapsing under it.

Rum is the obvious pairing.

Tequila may be even better.

Passion Fruit tequila soda

• 1 1/2 oz blanco tequila
• 1/2 oz Bacanha Passion Fruit
• 1/2 oz fresh lime juice
• Sparkling water

Pour it over a full glass of ice. It takes less than a minute and is better than a surprising number of drinks that require ten ingredients.

Black tea works too.

The tannin in the tea pulls against the tropical sweetness nicely, particularly if you keep the syrup modest.

Passion Fruit also earns a place outside the glass. A spoonful in plain Greek yogurt gives you much more control over sweetness than a pre-flavored yogurt cup.

Vanilla ice cream needs no argument.

This is one of the louder Bacanha flavors. You know when it is in the drink.

Shop Bacanha Passion Fruit Syrup

Bacanha Peach Syrup

Peach flavor can go wrong in a hurry.

There is ripe peach.

Then, several steps farther down the road, there is peach candy.

Bacanha stays closer to the fruit.

Peach iced tea is where we would begin.

Brew proper black tea, chill it and add Peach to the glass. Do not turn the tea into liquid candy. The best version still tastes primarily of tea.

A dry rosé can take a small splash, especially if you turn it into a spritz with sparkling water.

Bourbon and peach have been friends forever.

Peach also pairs particularly well with Ginger from the same range.

Use Peach as the main flavor and Ginger behind it. The little bit of heat keeps the fruit from getting too soft.

There is nothing especially complicated about Peach, which is part of its appeal. It works on a Tuesday.

Shop Bacanha Peach Syrup

Bacanha Pistachio Syrup

Pistachio has escaped the gelato case.

It is in croissants, chocolate bars, lattes, cakes, cookies and nearly every other part of the pastry world now.

Some of that enthusiasm has produced fairly questionable pistachio-flavored things.

The Bacanha bottle is useful because pistachio is not a particularly easy flavor to improvise at home.

Coffee is where we use it most.

Espresso, milk and a teaspoon of Pistachio can be enough.

Add more slowly.

The flavor becomes heavy if you bury the coffee under it.

Hot chocolate works well too. So does vanilla ice cream.

An espresso martini is another natural home, especially when you want pistachio flavor without adding another creamy ingredient.

Pistachio and Rose are worth trying together in coffee or dessert, but use the Rose sparingly.

Bacanha identifies tree nuts as an allergen in this syrup as well.

Shop Bacanha Pistachio Syrup

Bacanha Rose Syrup

Rose requires restraint.

A small amount smells beautiful.

A large amount can make a drink taste like perfume.

That narrow window is not a reason to avoid the bottle. It is the reason to pour carefully.

Rose and lemon work beautifully together. Lemonade is probably the easiest introduction.

Gin comes next.

Lychee may be the best pairing in the entire range.

Keep Rose in the background and let Lychee carry the drink.

Coffee is the less obvious use.

Floral flavors already have a long relationship with coffee through ingredients such as cardamom and orange blossom. A few drops of Rose in an iced latte can be excellent.

A few drops.

Not half an ounce.

Rose also works beside Pistachio, another pairing that feels more natural once you think about Middle Eastern sweets.

This is not the bottle we would hand to every customer.

The people who love rose do not need much persuasion.

Shop Bacanha Rose Syrup

Bacanha Strawberry Syrup

Strawberry is familiar enough that your palate knows immediately when somebody has done a poor imitation of it.

Bacanha uses concentrated strawberry juice along with its strawberry flavoring, and the result lands much closer to fruit than candy.

Lemonade is the simplest use.

Sparkling water comes next.

Black tea and green tea both work.

Bacanha has even suggested beer, which is less strange than it sounds. A tiny amount in a wheat beer, saison or sour can be very good.

The kitchen opens up further possibilities.

Vanilla ice cream, yogurt and panna cotta are easy.

Balsamic vinegar is more interesting.

Strawberries and balsamic have been together for a long time. A little Strawberry syrup in a vinaigrette can help when the actual berries on hand are less than magnificent.

Keep the amount small.

Nobody wants strawberry soda on their salad.

Shop Bacanha Strawberry Syrup

Bacanha Violet Syrup

Violet may be the most charmingly unnecessary bottle in the group.

We mean that affectionately.

Nobody wakes up needing violet syrup.

Then they see the bottle and wonder what violet tastes like.

France has a long tradition of violet-flavored sweets, particularly candied violets. The flavor is floral but quite different from rose. It is cooler, a little powdery and oddly nostalgic even if you cannot remember ever having tasted it before.

Bacanha leaves the syrup colorless rather than dyeing it purple.

Lemon is its easiest companion.

Violet lemonade works immediately.

Gin is another natural fit. The classic Aviation cocktail established that relationship long ago.

Black tea can take a small amount as well.

For a very simple alcohol-free drink, try Violet, lemon juice, sparkling water and ice.

Of all twelve bottles, Violet is probably the one most likely to prompt a conversation at the table.

That alone earns it some affection around here.

Shop Bacanha Violet Syrup

Which Bacanha syrup should you buy first?

We usually solve this in the store by asking what you already drink.

If you drink sparkling water

Look at Bergamot, Ginger, Elderflower, Passion Fruit or Peach.

Bergamot has citrus peel and perfume. Ginger brings heat. Passion Fruit is brighter and louder. Peach is easygoing. Elderflower leans floral without going all the way to Rose or Violet.

If you bought this for coffee

Go straight to Caramel, Hazelnut or Pistachio.

Caramel is the familiar one. Hazelnut is the classic café flavor. Pistachio is the bottle we would choose when the point is to bring home something harder to improvise yourself.

Rose is the wild card. Use very little.

If you make cocktails

Bergamot, Ginger, Elderflower, Passion Fruit and Lychee give you plenty of room to move.

Bergamot and Elderflower fit naturally with gin. Ginger travels among whiskey, rum and tequila. Passion Fruit likes rum and agave spirits. Lychee works beautifully with gin and vodka.

If you drink tea

Bergamot and Peach are easy choices for black tea.

Ginger and Passion Fruit work there too. Lychee and Elderflower are especially good with green tea.

If you want something unusual

Pick up Violet.

Rose is nearby.

Lychee splits the difference between familiar fruit and perfume.

Three-bottle Bacanha sets that make sense

Buying more than one bottle changes the way you use them.

Instead of asking what to do with a bottle of Peach, you begin wondering what happens when Peach meets Ginger.

For drinks and aperitifs

Bergamot + Elderflower + Ginger

For coffee

Caramel + Hazelnut + Pistachio

For fruit

Peach + Strawberry + Passion Fruit

For flowers

Elderflower + Rose + Violet

Our broadly useful trio

Bergamot + Ginger + Lychee

That combination can handle gin, whiskey, vodka, tea, sparkling water and plenty of nonalcoholic drinks without the bottles feeling redundant.

Mixing Bacanha flavors together

Use unequal amounts.

That solves most problems.

• Peach + Ginger: Peach in front, Ginger behind it.
• Lychee + Rose: Mostly Lychee, with Rose used sparingly.
• Strawberry + Bergamot: Strawberry supplies the fruit while Bergamot pulls it away from candy.
• Passion Fruit + Ginger: Particularly good with rum or tequila.
• Elderflower + Bergamot: An easy base for a gin spritz.
• Caramel + Hazelnut: Coffee needs little else.
• Caramel + Pistachio: Coffee again, or vanilla ice cream.
• Peach + Elderflower: Good with sparkling water or dry sparkling wine.

The second syrup often works better as seasoning than as an equal partner.

If you can clearly taste two unrelated syrups fighting for attention, pull one of them back.

The easiest way to make Bacanha soda

Fill the glass with ice.

Add some syrup.

Pour in cold sparkling water.

Stir.

Taste it.

There is no reason to make this more complicated than it is.

If the drink feels heavy, squeeze in lemon or lime.

If the flavor disappears, add another small splash of syrup.

Bergamot, Ginger, Peach, Passion Fruit and Elderflower all work beautifully this way.

This is probably how we use Bacanha most often ourselves.

Bacanha syrup and tea

Tea might be the best overlooked use for these bottles.

Bergamot is almost self-explanatory with black tea.

Peach gives you a much better version of peach iced tea than most bottled versions.

Passion Fruit brings acidity.

Ginger works hot or cold.

Strawberry is easy.

Violet can be lovely if you keep it restrained.

Green tea tends to prefer Elderflower or Lychee.

Jasmine tea and Lychee are especially good together.

Brew the tea first and sweeten individual glasses.

You keep much more control that way.

Bacanha syrup and coffee

Use less syrup than the coffee shop does.

Caramel, Hazelnut and Pistachio are all concentrated enough that a teaspoon can change an espresso or cappuccino noticeably.

Milk drinks tolerate more.

Cold brew takes Caramel and Hazelnut particularly well.

Pistachio belongs in espresso martinis.

Rose is the oddball worth trying once you already own the bottle.

Coffee should still taste like coffee when you are finished.

Using Bacanha syrup in cocktails

Most cocktail recipes already contain sugar somewhere.

When Bacanha enters the drink, let it take over some of that job.

A Whiskey Sour made with Ginger syrup probably needs less simple syrup.

A Collins can use Bergamot instead of plain sugar.

Passion Fruit can sweeten a rum or tequila sour.

Caramel can replace the sugar in an Old Fashioned.

Lychee can carry the sweetness in a gin or vodka drink.

The syrup becomes much easier to use once you stop treating it as an extra ingredient piled on top of an already finished recipe.

Using Bacanha without alcohol

This may be the strongest argument for keeping a few bottles around.

Zero-proof drinks often become absurdly complicated because recipes try to replace the complexity of alcohol with six or seven other ingredients.

There is another way.

Bergamot, lemon, soda.

Ginger, lime, soda.

Elderflower, cucumber, tonic.

Passion Fruit, lime, soda.

Lychee, Rose, lemon, soda.

Three ingredients can make a perfectly satisfying glass.

A good syrup already brings sugar and aroma. Citrus gives you acid. Soda provides dilution and texture.

You do not always need more.

Are Bacanha syrups organic?

Most of the Bacanha syrups in our assortment are currently sold as organic.

Violet is the odd one out. Bacanha's current listing does not carry the same organic certification language used for most of the rest of the range.

Formulas and packaging change over time, so the bottle in your hand remains the best source for current ingredient, allergen and certification information.

Hazelnut and Pistachio deserve particular attention for anyone with nut allergies.

How should Bacanha syrup be stored?

Keep unopened bottles somewhere cool and away from direct sunlight.

Once a bottle is open, keep the neck and cap clean and follow the storage instructions printed on that particular bottle. Bacanha's guidance has varied somewhat by product and market, with refrigeration recommended for some opened syrups.

If you use the bottles often, they rarely have much time to become a storage problem.

Ginger and Bergamot in particular have a habit of disappearing.

How many drinks are in a Bacanha bottle?

The standard Bacanha bottle contains 400 mL, or about 13.5 fluid ounces.

At roughly 20 mL per drink, that works out to around twenty drinks.

Coffee stretches the bottle much further because the serving is usually smaller.

Cocktails vary wildly.

Sparkling water drinks tend to use the most.

If you are trying to work out whether the bottle is expensive per serving, the answer looks much friendlier once you divide it across twenty or more glasses.

Can you just make syrup at home?

Of course.

Simple syrup takes minutes.

There is little reason to import sugar water from France.

The reason to buy Bacanha is the flavor.

Making ginger syrup at home is realistic.

Keeping bergamot, elderflower, passion fruit, lychee, pistachio, rose and violet preparations around at the same time is a different proposition.

That is where the bottles earn their space.

Caramel is convenient.

Violet solves a problem you were probably never going to solve yourself.

Both can be worthwhile for completely different reasons.

The most versatile Bacanha flavors

If somebody asked which bottles could move through the greatest number of drinks, our rough order would be:

1. Ginger
2. Bergamot
3. Elderflower
4. Passion Fruit
5. Peach
6. Lychee
7. Strawberry
8. Pistachio
9. Caramel
10. Hazelnut
11. Rose
12. Violet

Do not mistake that for a quality ranking.

Violet sits at the bottom because violet is a highly specific flavor.

That is also exactly why somebody might choose it first.

The most interesting Bacanha flavors

Ask a different question and the list turns around.

If we were shopping simply for flavors that are harder to encounter elsewhere:

1. Violet
2. Bergamot
3. Rose
4. Lychee
5. Pistachio
6. Elderflower
7. Passion Fruit
8. Ginger
9. Peach
10. Hazelnut
11. Strawberry
12. Caramel

Caramel has not suddenly become bad.

It is simply not difficult to find caramel in the world.

Violet is.

If we could only take three

With no knowledge of the person buying them, we would probably choose:

Bergamot

Ginger

Pistachio

Bergamot handles sparkling water, tea and gin.

Ginger covers tea, soda, whiskey, rum and tequila.

Pistachio gives coffee and dessert their own bottle.

If you tell us you drink iced tea every afternoon or make gin cocktails every weekend, that answer changes immediately.

Which is why we would rather ask.

Why we keep Bacanha on the shelf

Pretty packaging can get a product into a specialty food store.

It cannot keep it there forever.

Eventually somebody has to finish the bottle and want another one.

That happens with Bacanha.

Pistachio goes home with someone who wants better lattes.

Ginger goes home for cocktails and ends up in tea.

A customer who already knows elderflower notices Violet and decides to see what happens.

Bergamot becomes sparkling water all summer.

There is a useful little progression built into the range. Familiar flavors sit beside strange ones, and the strange ones never feel completely inaccessible.

That is one of our favorite things a shelf can do.

Give you something you came looking for.

Then show you something you did not know to look for.

Where to buy Bacanha syrup in Denver

We carry Bacanha at The Ambrosian Pantry, 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek North, Denver.

Our current selection includes Bergamot, Caramel, Elderflower, Ginger, Hazelnut, Lychee, Passion Fruit, Peach, Pistachio, Rose, Strawberry and Violet.

Shop the complete Bacanha collection at The Ambrosian Pantry.

We ship our available Bacanha syrups nationwide.

If you are standing in front of the shelf trying to choose, tell us what you normally drink.

Coffee, tea, gin, whiskey, sparkling water, something without alcohol.

We can usually take it from there.