The Spirit World

Maybe it’s just me, but there are several words that are just so dang confusing when it comes to trying to figure out how to pronounce them properly. For years, I had seen “orgeat” in print, but never pronounced. To look at the word and apply crude American pronunciation to it arrives at something like “or-geet” or “or-jeet”, neither of which unfortunately is correct. Apparently the proper pronunciation is “or-zha”, soft “g”, silent “t”. Paradigm is another word that bothers me as well.

Orgeat is a ingredient that is found listed for a variety of cocktails, with a good representation amongst a variety of “Tiki” drinks. Orgeat started life out as something totally different from what it is today. Originally it was basically just barley water. Water, barley, and honey, boiled for several hours and then strained. It was intended as a health tonic of sorts, and was apparently popular with the Romans. The word “orgeat” comes from the Latin word “hordeata”, which means “made with barley”, which became the Vealencian “orxata”, the Italian “orzata”, and the Dutch “orgeade”. Culturally the recipe evolved to be made with various types of grains, including rice. Sometimes milk is added to it, along with some other spices.

Today, orgeat is considered to be (almost) always a sweet almond syrup, the barley and other grains having long since disappeared. For the most part it is made by boiling almonds and sugar in water to form a syrup, and then adding a little bit of orange flower water (and sometimes rose flower water). It can be hard to find, but most syrup companies that manufacture syrups used to flavor coffees make a version so you can often find it in the grocery aisles wherever syrups are sold.

If you can’t find orgeat, almond Syrup is an adequate substitute. You might wonder then what the difference exactly is between orgeat and almond syrup. Most notably is that orgeat it traditionally cloudy, while almond syrup is clear. Perhaps this technically comes from orgeat being made by boiling the almonds in the syrup, while almond syrup is made by adding almond extract or flavorings to syrup, thus inherently the orgeat is a more rustic/cloudy product. The other difference is that as indicated above, orgeat should also include some orange flower or rose flower water, while plain almond syrup does not. Personally, I find the flavors so similar as not to really make a difference, especially when used as a secondary ingredient in a cocktail.

My personal favorite cocktail which uses orgeat is the Japanese cocktail, which we’ve already covered in the past. My second favorite would be the Mai Tai, which we have also already covered. To present a different recipe which uses orgeat, let’s stay in the Tiki theme of the Mai Tai. When I was working on a cocktail recipe book for the Museum of the American Cocktail, I asked Jeff “Beachbum” Berry (noted Tiki Cocktail Historian) if there were a couple Tiki recipes that he felt showcased what Tiki cocktails were all about. First on his list was the Mai Tai, which I already had covered, and his second was the Fog Cutter. Like the Mai Tai, this drink comes to us from Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron, and is perhaps his second most popular cocktail. Here is the recipe that Jeff provided me:

Fog Cutter

• 2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 1 oz orange juice
• 0.5 oz orgeat syrup
• 2 oz light Puerto Rican rum
• 1 oz brandy
• 0.5 oz gin
• 0.5 oz sweet sherry

Shake everything—except the sherry— with ice cubes. Pour into a tall tiki mug or chimney glass. Add more ice to fill. Float the sherry.