I'm telling you, sour mix is so easy to make at home. It's totally worth the little bit of effort that it takes to whip this up.
I know that it might be tempting to just buy a bottle of pre-made mix from the store. I get it. It's right there, and it's ready to go. But trust me. With how easy AND how much more delicious this is, you'd be a fool to buy some.
There are no weird preservatives and no overabundance of food coloring. Just 3 simple ingredients. You really can't beat it.
Need more recipes for home bar basics? Try my Grenadine Syrup or Luxardo Cherries!
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🌟 Why You'll Love This Recipe
It uses only fresh ingredients. Just fresh fruit juices and some simple syrup here!
It tastes great. That's it. It tastes so good.
You can use it in countless drinks. It has so many uses!
💭 What is Homemade Sour Mix?
Sour mix is, at its most basic, a roughly equal mixture of lemon and/or lime juices and simple syrup. It's used to sweeten cocktails (and mocktails).
You've probably seen pre-made bottled sour mix at the liquor store or in a bar. It's bright green in color. This version is nothing like that.
DIY Sour Mix is made with fresh ingredients (just simple syrup and some fresh juices) and tastes SO much better than the pre-made stuff. No weird preservatives or strange ingredients here.
📝 Ingredients
You only need THREE ingredients to make this sweet and sour mix at home.
- Lemon juice: Freshly squeezed, please.
- Lime juice: Again, freshly squeezed.
- Simple syrup: It's so easy to make your own at home. Just follow my recipe!
🔀 Substitutions or variations
- Make it more or less sweet. If you want a sweeter mix, use more simple syrup. Want it more tart? Use less.
- Change the ratio of lemon to lime juice. You can tinker with the amounts of lemon and lime juice if you prefer more of one over the other. Keep the overall amount of juice the same.
👩🏻🍳 How to make Homemade Sour Mix
Just like it says above: this mix is super easy to make. This recipe involves very few, very easy steps. You'll start out by making a simple syrup. We've done this before. It's, well, simple.
Next, you'll squeeze some (okay, a lot of) fresh citrus. Lemons and limes, to be exact. Stir the fresh squeezed juice into the cooled simple syrup and boom. You're done. Stash it in the fridge and break it out whenever you feel like whipping up a cocktail.
If you zest your lemons before juicing them, you can make sous vide limoncello, too!
I've found that the quantity of sour mix made with this recipe fits perfectly in a quart mason jar.
🛠️ How to use homemade sweet and sour mix
Homemade Sour Mix can be used in many different cocktails. A few of them are shown below. Click any of the photos below to be taken to the recipes!
🥃 More home bar basics
If you want to up your home bar cred even further, check out the recipes below.
❓ FAQs
Yes. For the best results, please use freshly squeezed lemon and lime juices.
Store it in the fridge in an airtight container.
Because it uses fresh ingredients. It tastes better. And there are no weird preservatives or other ingredients that you can't even pronounce.
I'd love to know what you thought of this recipe! Don't forget to leave a comment and ⭐️ star rating below!
✨ Recipe
Homemade Sour Mix
Ingredients
- 1 cup simple syrup
- 1 cup lemon juice freshly squeezed
- ¾ cups lime juice freshly squeezed
Instructions
- Combine the simple syrup and freshly squeezed juices in an airtight container.
- Store in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Freshly squeezed juices will give you the best results
Nutrition
Disclaimer: Nutritional information is a generated estimate and is not guaranteed to be accurate.
Juanita
Try this recipe for Key Lime Tini:
1 part this recipe sour mix
1 part Licor 43
1 part Vanilla Vodka
Shake over ice and serve in a martini glass with a thin slice of lime.
derp
I loved the flavor, but I would need to boil it down more for certain recipes. Next time I will half the water.
kerry
Anyone done this with a jar of lemon or lime juice from the store? 1 cup of juice takes like 4-5 lemons and at least that many limes thats kinda $$
John R.
Good stuff, Lauren! I made a few tweaks to your recipe, using mostly honey instead of sugar, and all lemon juice. Turned out great! I'm now ready for a summer of whiskey sours!
laurenpacek
So glad that you could make it work for you! Cheers!
Mrs. Blennerhassit
One of the points of sour mix is to create a froth on top - in the old days, egg whites were used for this purpose in the sour mix.... the store bought versions of sour mix have something in them that foams up.
laurenpacek
You're right, egg whites are still very often used to create that lovely head of foam on cocktails! However, the egg white foam and sour mix (whether homemade or store bought) are two separate components to a cocktail.
ratebot203
wow very cool :)))
Chase
So just double up the water amount and it worked better for whiskey sour? A girl I'm dating loves Amaretto sour so I'm going to make some sour from scratch. I hate the store bought stuff.
Robin
Loved this mix! My sister was visiting and she loves Amaretto sours! I made this for her and she loved it. We did top it with some seltzer! We had to make another batch! Cheers!!
laurenpacek
Hey, Robin! Yayy so glad that y'all loved it!! Cheers!
JD
My recipe is always based on what I have for citrus. It's always great though.
JD
My recipe is always based on what I have for citrus. It's always great though.
Megan
Needed to make a sour mix ASAP since I forgot to get a few family members were coming for Christmas. What better way to celebrate? Drinks! This sour mix recipe went well with the Collins, and daiquiri for starters... more to come. Well balanced on sweetness and sour but still taste the alcohol of choice! 🙂