Home brew orgeat - Tiki Drinks and Food

S Scottes Member A Little North Of Boston Joined: Feb 18, 2007 Posts: 490	S Scottes Posted posted on Mon, Feb 19, 2007 6:01 PM I tried my hand at making Orgeat in a couple different ways and thought I'd share my experiences. (And some of my inexperience...) I have to admit that I'm no expert on Orgeat. The only stuff I have ever tasted is Fee Brothers. After seeing this thread I knew that I could do better than Fee Brothers so I thought I'd give it a shot. I decided to try a few different ways since I wasn't too sure which would be better in the long run. I also figure that I'd share the efforts, since I've been lurking here for the last month and I've learned quite a bit. Hopefully someone can learn something from my trials. To get prepared, I visited a few local specialty food stores. A local farm store, Idylwilde Farms, carries all sorts of "weird" stuff and I saw Orange Flower Water there so I popped in to grab a bottle. This stuff is made in France branded "A. Monteux" and cost $3.69 for a 3 oz bottle. No ingredients listed, which I found odd. Tasting it straight, it's indescribable. Who thought of putting this stuff into Orgeat? It's great, no doubt, but I never would have thought of mixing this with almonds. I also grabbed a very nice "Natural, Pure Almond Extract" made by a local company, Scott's of Acton, MA. Ingredients are: oil of bitter almond, water, and alcohol. $3.95 for a 2 oz bottle. This stuff just blows away the regular stuff I used to get in the local supermarket. There is no comparison - this stuff is divine. (I'm sure that any organic or natural extract would be better than the generic stuff though.) I also grabbed a pound of Shelled Almonds since I couldn't find any whole blanched almonds, just slivers. I figured that whole almonds would retain more taste so I skipped over the slivers. I then headed to a local organic/natural supermarket, Trader Joe's. I grabbed a pound of their Organic Sugar made from Evaporated Cane Juice. I passed by their nuts and saw a bag of Raw Almonds. I grabbed them, suddenly worried that I might have purchased processed almonds at my last stop. I didn't see any Blanched almonds there. I headed hope to start cooking. The first batches were done using the recipe at The Art Of Drink, listed above. Soaking chopped almonds and all that. Before proceeding I sampled both bags of almonds and was surprised at the difference in taste. The first ones were drier and a lot less tasty than the Trader Joe's Raw Almonds. There was a big difference. Then I blanched the almonds by dipping them in boiling water for 1 minute, and then immediately running them under cold water. I kept the two kinds of almonds separated just in case they made a difference. I chopped up the first batch with a mini food-processor (note that adding a little liquid helps a lot) and dumped then lot into a bowl and covered them with water. Here's the inexperience showing: I noticed the chopped-up almond skins floating in the water, and instantly realized that they'd tend to make things bitter. That's when it hit me that Blanching is done to make the skins easier to remove. Not too bright... I let them soak anyway, just to see the difference. I blanched the Raw Almonds, ran them under cold water, and proceeded to de-skin by hand. What a serious pain. Well, it wasn't that bad, but a bit tedious. I chopped them in the processor and set them to soak. An hour later I started the squeezing process, placing a lemon-sized bunch of chopped almonds into a square of cheesecloth and squeezing like heck. 4 squeezes later I was done with the first batch. Then the same to the second batch. It was a pain, if you ask me - easy but annoying. And I ran through $4 worth of cheesecloth by the end of the night. There has to be an easier way. (Yes I'm lazy.) Another hour of soaking and another round of squeezing through cheesecloth. I was left with 2 bowls full of what looked like slightly watery milk. I taste-tested the two, and there was no comparison. The batch that had all the chopped skins tasted like watery something - something that wasn't worthwhile. The batch made from skinless Raw Almonds tasted much better. However, I wasn't getting much almond flavor here, in either batch. I love almond. I expected the distinct taste of almonds. I got a hint of almond in water. I was not impressed. I tossed the batch of almonds-with-skins down the garbage disposal. I wasn't going to bother proceeding with that tasteless stuff. Instead, I concentrated on the near-tasteless Raw Almond batch. I had 16 oz of almond milk, a very nice color just like cow's milk. I got 16 oz of this almond milk. I heated it slightly on the stove, and added about 1.5 pounds of Trader Joe's Organic Sugar, the evaporated can sugar. Wow, did that make for an ugly color. My wife, an artist, couldn't describe it beyond "A positively yucky dark tan color with a touch of blech." Myself, I thought it looked disgusting, too, somewhere between watery turkey gravy and a Mai Tai. Regular table sugar would have made for a nice white, I'm sure, but I really wanted to stay with the natural stuff. Besides, this Orgeat was primarily going into Mai Tais so it was a perfect match. After the sugar dissolved I let it cool for a bit, and tasted it. It did not have any almond taste whatsoever, and tasted like sugar syrup made with a very mild turbinado sugar. OK, there was a very mild hint of almonds somewhere in there, but I think I tasted it because I knew it was there. I grabbed the Orange Flower Water and threw in 2 Tbsp. Wow, did that make a difference! I still can't describe the taste, but the aroma hits your nose long before the syrup hits your mouth. Quite nice, indeed. But still no almond taste. So I grabbed the natural almond extract and tossed in 1.5 tsp. NOW the taste of almonds was present! And it tasted quite yummy. The combination with the orange flower water and organic sugar was fantastic. Such depth, so many tastes and smells. This was good stuff. I am a fiend for bold tastes though, so I added another 1/2 Tbsp of orange flower water and another 1/2 tsp of almond extract. I figure I'll be using very little of this syrup in my Mai Tais. It is very very sweet and extremely bold in taste. But delicious - very very delicious. Now that I had some idea of what Orgeat is supposed to taste like I grabbed the Fee Brothers Orgeat and took a tiny taste. What is this crap? It literally burned the back of my throat going down. I checked the ingredients: corn syrup sweeteners, water sugar, and a bunch of chemicals. Their web site says it's "An almond-flavored milky-white syrup." Well, there's no mention of almonds in the ingredients. Compared to my Orgeat this is pure crap. All in all I don't think I made a very proper Orgeat. Next I had to try the Almond Milk method. I found a quart of almond milk at Trader Joe's. Made by Pacific Natural Foods this was $3.29 and contained: Almond base (filtered water and almonds), brown rice sweetener (filtered water and rice) natural almond flavor, sea salt, carrageenan, and some preservatives. I took a sip before proceeding with the process. I was not impressed. It tasted like watery cardboard - yes, that's what my notes state. Watery cardboard. I did not find much almond taste. I couldn't imagine proceeding. I threw it out. One of these days I'll taste a real orgeat. Until then, my recipe is as follows: 1 cup water 1.5 cups organic evaporated cane juice sugar 2-1/2 TBsp Orange Flower Water 2 tsp organic almond extract 1 oz vodka or light rum to preserve. Note that this is a pretty powerful mix. You might want to start with 1 Tbsp of the orange flower water and 1 tsp of the almond extract, and adjust to taste. And I beseech you to never buy the Fee Brothers Orgeat.

I tried my hand at making Orgeat in a couple different ways and thought I'd share my experiences. (And some of my inexperience...)

I have to admit that I'm no expert on Orgeat. The only stuff I have ever tasted is Fee Brothers. After seeing this thread I knew that I could do better than Fee Brothers so I thought I'd give it a shot. I decided to try a few different ways since I wasn't too sure which would be better in the long run. I also figure that I'd share the efforts, since I've been lurking here for the last month and I've learned quite a bit. Hopefully someone can learn something from my trials.

To get prepared, I visited a few local specialty food stores. A local farm store, Idylwilde Farms, carries all sorts of "weird" stuff and I saw Orange Flower Water there so I popped in to grab a bottle. This stuff is made in France branded "A. Monteux" and cost $3.69 for a 3 oz bottle. No ingredients listed, which I found odd. Tasting it straight, it's indescribable. Who thought of putting this stuff into Orgeat? It's great, no doubt, but I never would have thought of mixing this with almonds.

I also grabbed a very nice "Natural, Pure Almond Extract" made by a local company, Scott's of Acton, MA. Ingredients are: oil of bitter almond, water, and alcohol. $3.95 for a 2 oz bottle. This stuff just blows away the regular stuff I used to get in the local supermarket. There is no comparison - this stuff is divine. (I'm sure that any organic or natural extract would be better than the generic stuff though.)

I also grabbed a pound of Shelled Almonds since I couldn't find any whole blanched almonds, just slivers. I figured that whole almonds would retain more taste so I skipped over the slivers.

I then headed to a local organic/natural supermarket, Trader Joe's. I grabbed a pound of their Organic Sugar made from Evaporated Cane Juice. I passed by their nuts and saw a bag of Raw Almonds. I grabbed them, suddenly worried that I might have purchased processed almonds at my last stop. I didn't see any Blanched almonds there.

I headed hope to start cooking.

The first batches were done using the recipe at The Art Of Drink, listed above. Soaking chopped almonds and all that. Before proceeding I sampled both bags of almonds and was surprised at the difference in taste. The first ones were drier and a lot less tasty than the Trader Joe's Raw Almonds. There was a big difference.

Then I blanched the almonds by dipping them in boiling water for 1 minute, and then immediately running them under cold water. I kept the two kinds of almonds separated just in case they made a difference. I chopped up the first batch with a mini food-processor (note that adding a little liquid helps a lot) and dumped then lot into a bowl and covered them with water.

Here's the inexperience showing: I noticed the chopped-up almond skins floating in the water, and instantly realized that they'd tend to make things bitter. That's when it hit me that Blanching is done to make the skins easier to remove. Not too bright... I let them soak anyway, just to see the difference.

I blanched the Raw Almonds, ran them under cold water, and proceeded to de-skin by hand. What a serious pain. Well, it wasn't that bad, but a bit tedious. I chopped them in the processor and set them to soak.

An hour later I started the squeezing process, placing a lemon-sized bunch of chopped almonds into a square of cheesecloth and squeezing like heck. 4 squeezes later I was done with the first batch. Then the same to the second batch. It was a pain, if you ask me - easy but annoying. And I ran through $4 worth of cheesecloth by the end of the night. There has to be an easier way. (Yes I'm lazy.)

Another hour of soaking and another round of squeezing through cheesecloth. I was left with 2 bowls full of what looked like slightly watery milk. I taste-tested the two, and there was no comparison. The batch that had all the chopped skins tasted like watery something - something that wasn't worthwhile. The batch made from skinless Raw Almonds tasted much better.

However, I wasn't getting much almond flavor here, in either batch. I love almond. I expected the distinct taste of almonds. I got a hint of almond in water. I was not impressed.

I tossed the batch of almonds-with-skins down the garbage disposal. I wasn't going to bother proceeding with that tasteless stuff. Instead, I concentrated on the near-tasteless Raw Almond batch. I had 16 oz of almond milk, a very nice color just like cow's milk. I got 16 oz of this almond milk.

I heated it slightly on the stove, and added about 1.5 pounds of Trader Joe's Organic Sugar, the evaporated can sugar. Wow, did that make for an ugly color. My wife, an artist, couldn't describe it beyond "A positively yucky dark tan color with a touch of blech." Myself, I thought it looked disgusting, too, somewhere between watery turkey gravy and a Mai Tai. Regular table sugar would have made for a nice white, I'm sure, but I really wanted to stay with the natural stuff. Besides, this Orgeat was primarily going into Mai Tais so it was a perfect match.

After the sugar dissolved I let it cool for a bit, and tasted it. It did not have any almond taste whatsoever, and tasted like sugar syrup made with a very mild turbinado sugar. OK, there was a very mild hint of almonds somewhere in there, but I think I tasted it because I knew it was there.

I grabbed the Orange Flower Water and threw in 2 Tbsp. Wow, did that make a difference! I still can't describe the taste, but the aroma hits your nose long before the syrup hits your mouth. Quite nice, indeed.

But still no almond taste. So I grabbed the natural almond extract and tossed in 1.5 tsp. NOW the taste of almonds was present! And it tasted quite yummy. The combination with the orange flower water and organic sugar was fantastic. Such depth, so many tastes and smells. This was good stuff.

I am a fiend for bold tastes though, so I added another 1/2 Tbsp of orange flower water and another 1/2 tsp of almond extract. I figure I'll be using very little of this syrup in my Mai Tais. It is very very sweet and extremely bold in taste. But delicious - very very delicious.

Now that I had some idea of what Orgeat is supposed to taste like I grabbed the Fee Brothers Orgeat and took a tiny taste. What is this crap? It literally burned the back of my throat going down. I checked the ingredients: corn syrup sweeteners, water sugar, and a bunch of chemicals. Their web site says it's "An almond-flavored milky-white syrup." Well, there's no mention of almonds in the ingredients. Compared to my Orgeat this is pure crap.

All in all I don't think I made a very proper Orgeat. Next I had to try the Almond Milk method. I found a quart of almond milk at Trader Joe's. Made by Pacific Natural Foods this was $3.29 and contained: Almond base (filtered water and almonds), brown rice sweetener (filtered water and rice) natural almond flavor, sea salt, carrageenan, and some preservatives. I took a sip before proceeding with the process. I was not impressed. It tasted like watery cardboard - yes, that's what my notes state. Watery cardboard. I did not find much almond taste. I couldn't imagine proceeding.

I threw it out.

One of these days I'll taste a real orgeat. Until then, my recipe is as follows:

1 cup water
1.5 cups organic evaporated cane juice sugar
2-1/2 TBsp Orange Flower Water
2 tsp organic almond extract
1 oz vodka or light rum to preserve.

Note that this is a pretty powerful mix. You might want to start with 1 Tbsp of the orange flower water and 1 tsp of the almond extract, and adjust to taste.

And I beseech you to never buy the Fee Brothers Orgeat.

Post #286803 by Scottes on Mon, Feb 19, 2007 6:01 PM