Cranberry Simple Syrup

This cranberry simple syrup recipe is bursting with tart flavor and bright red color! Use it for mixing up brilliant cocktails and mocktails.

Got cranberries? If you don’t want to make sauce or bake bread, try cranberry simple syrup! This bright red syrup is the perfect use for fresh or frozen cranberries, making a sweet tart sweetener that adds a zing to cocktails and mocktails. Use it to bring a zippy flavor in whiskey sour or martini, or simply add bubbles to make a highball mocktail. Or use it as a grenadine substitute in a Shirley Temple or Tequila Sunrise!

Ingredients for cranberry simple syrup

A simple syrup is a liquid sweetener made with equal parts sugar and water. It’s often used for sweetening drinks like cocktails and mocktails, made by simmering sugar and water until the sugar dissolves. For a cranberry simple syrup, it easiest to cook down the cranberries first, then strain them to make the “water” part of the simple syrup formula. The ingredients are:

• Fresh or frozen cranberries: Fresh berries are best, but frozen cranberries cook down easily and are available all year long.
• Cinnamon stick: The cinnamon adds a unique flavor layer to this syrup.
• Granulated sugar: You can make simple syrup with other types of sugar, but granulated sugar is best here. Brown sugar or demerara sugar have a darker brown color, which muddy the brilliant color of the berries.
• Water

Tips for making cranberry simple syrup

Cranberry simple syrup is easy to whip up, but it’s slightly different than some of our other simple syrup methods since it uses whole fruit. Here’s what to know:

• Simmer the cranberries with water until they break down, then strain through a fine mesh sieve. This creates a sort of “cranberry water” that works as substitute for the water in a simple syrup. (This infuses the berry flavor without making the syrup too thick, which can happen if you simply cook down the berries with the sugar.)
• Whisk in the sugar and refrigerate. The residual heat dissolves the sugar and makes a thick bright red syrup.

Storage info

This homemade cranberry simple syrup lasts up to 1 month refrigerated. The flavor is freshest when it’s first made, but this syrup holds up well over time.

Can you use it as a cranberry syrup, too?

You bet! No need to keep this to only drinks. Use it to drizzle over a stack of pancakes, waffles, or French toast, or add it to yogurt for a tasty yogurt parfait.

Drinks to make with cranberry simple syrup

This cranberry simple syrup has a subtle sweet tart flavor and a hint of nuance from the cinnamon. Use it to make craft cocktails, mocktails, or other drinks. You can also use it as a grenadine substitute in classic cocktails or an alterative to raspberry syrup in drinks. Here are some ideas:

• Whiskey Sour: Use it in place of the standard simple syrup to make a spin on the whiskey sour.
• Clover Club: Substitute it for raspberry syrup in a classic Clover Club cocktail, a pink drink with gin and an egg white foam.
• Cranberry Lime Rickey: Make a cranberry version of a Cherry Lime Rickey.
• Shirley Temple: Use to make a cranberry Shirley Temple or Dirty Shirley, the vodka-based cocktail version of the classic mocktail.
• Tequila Sunrise: Add it to OJ for a beautiful cranberry Tequila Sunrise.
• Malibu Sunset: Mix up Malibu rum and OJ for a beautiful Malibu Sunset.
• Ward 8: Make the Ward 8, a spin on the whiskey sour with rye whiskey, grenadine and orange juice.

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Whiskey Sour

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Clover Club Cocktail

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Dirty Shirley Drink

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Tequila Sunrise

This cranberry simple syrup recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free.

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