Amaretto Sour: The Perfect Cocktail

One of the first drinks I ever had was an Amaretto Sour. It has the perfect blend of sweet, sour, with just a pinch of bitter, that is delightful when it hits your palate. Let’s learn how to make one!

What’s in an Amaretto Sour?

An Amaretto Sour consists of Amaretto, a cordial or liqueur, mixed with sours mix. It is similar to other sours drink like a Whiskey Sour, Vodka or Vodka Cherry Sour, Rum Sour, and Gin Sour. The main difference between Amaretto and these other cocktails is the type of alcohol.

Each of the other mentioned Sours drinks have one of your standard liquors in them. That makes the drinks much stronger. Amaretto is a cordial or liqueur which just means it is any sort of unaged, distilled alcohol that has had some kind of sweetener added into it; like fruit, syrups, sugars, etc. Liqueurs typically have a much lower proof than liquors.

Amaretto, as a liqueur, typically has about half the alcohol content of these other liquors. So, the Amaretto Sour is not a very strong drink and is more meant for sipping. It can get you drunk eventually, but it would take a fair amount of them consumed pretty quickly.

What is Amaretto?

Like we said above, Amaretto is a cordial or liqueur. It is commonly known as an almond flavored liqueur and is often used in cooking as well as cocktails. It will typically have an apricot kernel base, but may also contain “almonds, bitter almonds, and peach stones”. You can actually make your own pretty easily too.

The actual origin is ripe with speculation, legends, and folklore. What we do know is it came from a small region in Italy called Saronno. That is also where one of the more popular brands (and the one we will use today) came from; di Saronno. di Saronno, in Italian, means “by Saronno”. That’s just a fun bit of trivia.

What do you drink Amaretto with?

You can mix a lot of things with Amaretto. For instance, lemon juice and simple syrup aka sours mix, works extremely well 😝

Seriously though, it’s a great question. What’s the best mixer or the best way to drink Amaretto? It depends on your personal tastes but some of our favorite things to use as mixers are orange juice (which can make an Amaretto Stone Sour or Amaretto Sunrise) and a simple highball like Amaretto and Coke (or even Sprite).

Whiskey, especially bourbon, can also enhance any Amaretto cocktail you make. The warm caramel and oaky tones of bourbon will often smooth out the bitter edges of Amaretto making the entire drink a much more improved cocktail. It will also give the drink a little more kick if you’re looking for something like that. This recipe is for the standard recipe without bourbon but we will include a version with bourbon on the recipe card.

How To Make An Amaretto Sour

This recipe calls for sours mix. We prefer to make our own within the drink. The lemon juice and simple syrup components do that. If you prefer to buy some, just replace both the lemon juice and simple syrup amount with the equivalent amount of sours mix (1 ¾ oz).

Equipment:

Rocks glasses (this is the set we use personally)

Jigger (we use the jigger and shaker from this set)

Cocktail shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

4″ Cocktail Pick

Get all your ingredients together and start making your drink.

Ingredients:

3 oz Amaretto (we use DiSaronno)

1 ¼ oz lemon juice

1 oz Simple Syrup

lemon wedge and/or 3 maraschino cherries

1 oz egg white (optional)

1 oz Sprite (optional)

1-2 splashes Bitters (optional)

Step One

Fill shaker with ice.

Note: add ice later if making with egg white

Step Two

Add in 3 oz DiSaronno Amaretto, 1 ¼ oz lemon juice, and 1 oz Simple Syrup (add bitters now, if you like)

Step Three

Place top on shaker and give a couple shakes.

Note: if adding egg white, add ice after first shake and then shake again. If adding Sprite, add 1 oz after shaking.

Step Four

Using a Hawthorne strainer, pour your drink into rocks glass over fresh ice.

Step Five

Garnish with an orange wheel and 3 maraschino cherries on a 4″ cocktail pick.

Serve and Enjoy!

Recipe

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