Apricot sour is a classic sour cocktail made with apricot brandy, lemon or lime juice, and sweetener. Sours are meant to stimulate the appetite and typically contain eight parts of base spirit, two parts of acidic ingredient, and one part of sweetener. Bartenders may use sour mix or lemonade/limeade instead of fresh juice. Other famous sours include margarita, whiskey sour, and gin sour. Purists may argue that apricot brandy is not a traditional sour ingredient, but most drinkers won’t care.
An apricot sour is one of several classic sour cocktails whose base spirit is apricot brandy. A certain type of ingredient is added to the drink to make it “sour,” usually lemon or lime juice, as well as a sweetener such as superfine sugar or simple syrup. It is typically shaken with ice and then strained into an acid tumbler or cocktail glass. The conventional garnish for a tart apricot is a half-slice of orange and a maraschino cherry on a toothpick or cocktail skewer.
Sours are a family of pre-dinner beverages that stimulate the salivary glands. They’re meant to whet the appetite, not dull it, and therefore shouldn’t be too sweet or syrupy. A sour drink generally contains about eight parts of the base spirit, such as whiskey, gin or apricot brandy, two parts of acidic ingredient and one part of sweetener.
However, written recipes, especially for cocktails, are not hard and fast rules. While taverns and restaurants typically require their bartenders to follow basic recipes when preparing drinks, those who entertain at home shouldn’t feel bound by the arbitrary dictates of printed recipes. Instead, they should prepare their acids – and any other cocktails – according to their tastes and preferences.
In many commercial establishments, instead of lemon or lime juice, bartenders will use a sour mix, a combination of both juices and simple syrup. Others use lemonade or limeade as their acidic and sweetening agent. Some bartenders will mix a little egg white into their acid mix to produce a head heavier on their acids; others despise this approach. Whichever souring method is preferred, most good bartenders will have gallons of the mix ready and available for use.
The most famous sour is probably the margarita, which is generally better known as a party drink than a pre-dinner cocktail. Whiskey sours and gin sours are also very well known. A side-car is a related beverage that mixes cognac with lemon juice as an acidifying agent, but adds a liqueur such as Countreau or Grand Marnier as a sweetening agent.
Purists might argue that apricot acid stretches the boundaries of what constitutes an acid. That’s because brandy, while technically a distilled spirit, is distilled from wine, which itself is made from fermented fruit. In contrast, traditional spirits such as whiskey and gin are distilled from fermented seeds such as wheat or juniper. The average diner who has a pre-dinner cocktail or two, though, and has come to enjoy the apricot sour, probably won’t care much for such intellectual examinations of the pre-dinner cocktail.
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